Culture Shock
by TheKnittingLady
Summary: Can Flack solve the mystery without losing his heart? CSI:NY/OC
1. Chapter 1

**Note**: I am setting this roughly 18 months after the end of season 4/start of season 5, so Flack has had some time to recover from Jess Angell's death. Also, since it's in the future and I have hope, Danny is up and walking again.

**Chapter One**

**Tuesday**

**8:01 pm**

**Abandoned Factory**

**South Bronx, NYC**

They were finally ready to make the bust. The SWAT team was going in first, to secure the area. Mack, Flack and the rest of the team hung back, to go in as soon as they could. It was the biggest human trafficking bust they'd had in a long time, and they wanted the evidence as quickly and cleanly as they could get it. The problem was that the gang in question had set up in an old factory compound, meaning lots of outbuildings, rooms, and underground spaces where they could be hiding. It was a rat hunt, one no one would enjoy.

Detective Donald Flack, Jr. was not having a good day.

When the alarm went off the gang leader and his second jumped. They stopped what they were doing and went to check the monitor. The sight of the armored cops goaded them into action. "You alert the others and secure the escape route." The leader growled, "I'll go eliminate the witnesses."

As the NYPD made their way through the old factory they could hear gunfire from somewhere deep in the complex, slow, methodical gunfire, accompanied by the sounds of women screaming. By the time they caught all the way up to the leader at least a dozen of the gang had died in the shooting, and three cops were wounded. But it was in the last room that the horrors were revealed.

It was in a room at the very back, one where they had turned the stored pipes into long, impossibly narrow cages by the simple expediency of welding a grate on the front of each one. The leader of the gang had been cornered there, had been told to put down his weapon, had fired at police, and had died there. But not before he finished his work, making sure there were no witnesses to finger anyone higher in the ranks.

"Oh my God," even in his days as a Marine, Mack Taylor had never seen anything like this.

In each pipe lay the body of a young woman. They looked to be in their late teens or early twenties. It was clear that the leader had fired through the grate of each pipe, a bullet that had ricocheted inside the solid iron tube, devastating the woman lying within.

Flack was the one that found the seventeen round magazine, lying empty in a pool of blood, "Looks like we caught him as he was reloading."

"I only wish we could have caught him sooner. Looks like a lot of families are going to be facing their worst nightmares." Mack sighed and shook his head in disgust.

It was then that Flack heard it, a slight scratching sound coming from one of the pipes.

"Shhh!" Flack held a hand up to the room. He could have sworn he heard something coming from one of the pipes, must be a rat, he thought, or a really big roach. But he pulled his gun and got down to look at the bottommost pipe, back in the corner. If just one of these bastards was alive, he was going to have him for lunch, swear to God. He crouched down and looked in the bottom, corner pipe, expecting to find at best a large sewer rat waiting for the people to leave. He did not expect what he saw back there, a mat of hair, a flash of bare skin, and finally two intelligent grey-green eyes peering back at him.

For a moment there it seemed like time stopped. He remembered his Grandfather, the tales Pop used to tell of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the _**daoine sídhe. **_Sidhe, he thought, at his first sight of what seemed like such a tiny creature. They caught one of the fae folk, they must have. It would take that kind of luck to be in the eighteenth pipe

And now I've been caught too.

"Hey. Hey there. Mack?" He kept his voice quiet so as not to startle her. "Clear everyone out and call the medics, we got a survivor." While Mack went to work he opened the grate and started trying to coax her out of the back of the pipe. He didn't want to add to the trauma by going in and dragging her out. Besides, no way he would fit. He did not even want to think about that, trapped in someplace cold, dark and hard, always with that curved surface. Iron pipes, he thought. Pop always said cold iron would trap a fae. "Hey honey, its okay. We're the police, NYPD. Come on, tar amach, you're gonna be safe now. Siúil leat. Come here." He was coaxing her half in English, half in Gaelic, and he didn't care. She just kept watching him with those eyes.

He reached in, offered a hand, and offered something more than a thought and less than a prayer to his own, private angel. Jess, you must have been pulling for us tonight. Thank you. Thank you for this. Thank you for one. Now please don't let me fuck this up. He got all the way down on his knees and peered into the pipe. Those eyes, he thought as he looked at the creature down in the pipe. She's scared out of her mind, and yet I've never seen eyes like that before. Fae eyes, I swear. What the hell? "Yeah, that's it sweetie. Come on out of there. Tar amach .That's a girl, come on."

He held his hand out for what seemed like forever, until she carefully, tentatively put her hand in his.

Thank you god. Thank you Jess. Thank you whoever. He tugged gently, and guided her out into the light. He had a sense of way too much whiskey hair, and fine boned features, but really, all he could see was her eyes. Something about those grey-green eyes that didn't want to let go. Bewitched, he thought, I'm caught. She finally looked away, looked around the room, at the bodies, and slowly dropped to her knees, burying her face in her hands. She's so tiny, he thought, as Stella handed him a blanket to wrap around her, fully grown but tiny. "No, don't look honey, you don't need to look." Then she was light in his arms as he carried her up, away from the bodies and the blood.

He put her on the gurney, turned as Mack came up behind him. "Thank god for one," Mack said.

"I have to agree with you on that one." Flack thought. Luck of the Irish, maybe luck of the Sidhe.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter One**

**Tuesday**

**9:53 pm **

**Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center**

**South Bronx, NYC**

Stella Bonasera had been called away from the scene to the ER. The nurse who called said they were having a problem with the rape kit. Flack tagged along, stating that he wanted to see if he could talk to the witness.

"Good luck with that," the nurse said when they got to the ER. "She's not talking. And we're not sure she understands what we're staying."

"You've got to be kidding me," Stella muttered. The two detectives followed the nurse into the mystery girl's room. She was sitting there, still filthy and wild, wearing a hospital gown, her hands folded in her lap. She looks like a queen, he thought, so calm and regal, even with all this. "Can you," he pointed to her, and then made the flapping motion by his lips. "talk?" All he got was a confused look.

"Well, she's going to need treatment, even if we don't do the kit," Stella sighed. "Let's go see if we can maybe coax her through it."

"And that's my cue." Flack took the hint and stepped out the door. It took all he had not to beg Stella to not run the kit, to leave her alone. He looked back as he closed the door, just before the nurse drew the privacy curtain. She'd watched him the entire time.

**Wednesday**

**1:11 am **

**Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center**

**South Bronx, NYC**

Stella and the nurse finally stepped out of the room. Flack had known he didn't have to wait. He'd waited anyway.

"Well, that was less than fun." Stella was drooping as she came out the door, the bag of evidence in her hands.

"How is she?" Flack came over, hoping to get a peek into the room before the door closed. All he saw was a huddled form under the blanket.

"Not good, she had no clue what we were doing. I'd almost swear that was her first exam." Stella was clearly shaken, as was the nurse who went back to the station to sit a while. "They're going to keep her overnight. After that we'll bring her back to the station, and see what we can do with her."

"All right. I'll come get her in the morning." He wasn't even supposed to be on shift tomorrow, well, later today, but he'd be here anyway.

**Wednesday**

**1:30 pm **

**Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center**

**South Bronx, NYC**

Later that day Flack came by to pick her up and bring her back to the station, to see if they could learn anything at all from her.

"Well, you got problems," was all the nurse had to say as she led him to the girl's room.

"What do you mean?" So far when he was around the girl had been calm, serene, even noble, even when she was upset, "Something medical?"

"Nope, she had no major injuries that haven't healed already. So far she hasn't said anything to anyone and hasn't looked like she's understood a thing. I had some of our translators come by and try it, but no joy. I had to show her how to put her pants on like a baby. Ate her dinner and breakfast like it was tasty. Didn't take a shower even though we said she could, and then proceeded to leave us a gift in the commode. She might have some kind of mental impairment, they don't know, but she's not a danger to herself or others so no one's going to keep her. And she's scared of every man who walks by. I don't know how she's gonna act toward you. And make sure she keeps eating, her BMI is low"

He sent out a thought to his own, private angel. Jess, where are you when I need you. Help me out here. He walked into the room and saw her sitting there, quiet, her hands folded in her lap, dressed in the scrubs they'd given her and slippers, her hair still a tangled mess, still filthy. Her eyes locked on his as soon as he walked through the door. She's bewitching me, I swear.

The nurse was right. He had problems.

"All right, come on. We're going to go down to the station so we can talk, all right? Did anyone ever get your name?" In all the mess, it didn't surprise him that it might have been overlooked. He pointed to himself. "I'm Don. Don." He pointed to the nurse. "She's…" He checked her ID. "Marie. Don. Marie." He pointed to the girl and exaggerated the question on his face. All he got back was another confused look. "Okay, well, that didn't work." He came over and gently took her arm, leading her toward the door. For some reason she didn't seem scared of him, even though she was cringing away from nearly everyone else. He led her to the elevator, which thankfully opened right away. And then encountered the first of what he would come to call his, "new thing moments".

She looked the whole thing over, at first from the outside, at the space where the doors retracted, up into the shaft, down at the floor, pointing to various spots giving him questioning looks. She looked so long that the other people got restless and he let that car go, the doors closing almost on her nose, making her step back into him. He finally got her into a car, and watched her as she looked around almost eagerly. "What, you've never been in an elevator before?" Then the car started moving, and she wrapped her arms around his waist and hung on for dear life. That started him laughing, "I guess not."

He got her out the door and over to the car, passenger side front. "Here we go." He opened the door and waited for her to get in. She was too busy looking at everything, absolutely everything, to notice. "Come on, let's go, time for sightseeing later." With a hand on her head he guided her into the car, and then went around to drive. "Put your seatbelt on." She pointed at something out the window. "Put your seatbelt on." He pointed at the shoulder belt. She looked to where he was pointing, then back, clearly confused. "Is this your first time in a car too?" He reached over to get her seatbelt, and accidentally brushed her breasts, causing her to cringe back. "No, no, it's okay; I'm not going to hurt you. Here." He got her belt around her, and clicked it into place, giving her something else to examine. "No, no, leave that alone, just, here." He gently planted her hands in her lap. "Stay." She sat there very primly, but the look she cut at him was somehow wicked. He couldn't help but chuckle, which started her silently giggling. She had the most magical smile.

**Wednesday**

**2:00 pm **

**12th Precinct**

**Manhattan, NYC**

Okay, now the station, at least she seemed all right with stairs, even if she pulled away from every man who walked by, almost tucking herself into him for protection. He took her to one of the interrogation rooms and sat her down at the table. "Okay Honey, you're not in trouble at all. We just want to talk to you and get you home." Yeah, she had no clue.

There was a tap on the door before Danny came in and handed Flack a file of what they had so far. "Okay, Stella took her prints last night, we ran them and her DNA, and got nothing. We ran her face through the missing persons database, and got nothing. Every other girl in that room has been accounted for, but not her. So far we got nada." He sat down next to Flack, across from the girl, and watched her watch them back.

There was a very long, very quiet moment as everyone stared at everyone else.

Danny kept watching her, and asked "Do we even have a name?"

"Nope," Flack replied. "I'm calling her Honey. It goes with the hair." He pointed at his friend, them himself. "Danny. Don." She pointed with him, and nodded like she had a clue.

For some odd reason a picture came to his mind, of Jess speaking French into his recorder that day. "You know, we could start with the obvious." Flack looked up from her too empty file. "Listen, Honey," he waved to be sure he had her attention. "Do you," he pointed at her; "hear," he pointed at his ears, "me?" He pointed at himself.

She seemed to get the idea, and nodded slowly. Yes, her eyes said to him, we're communicating at last.

"Do you," he pointed at her, "speak," he pointed to his mouth and made the flapping motion with his fingers, "English?" Now the question was did she know that word? Her eyes brightened, she smiled a little…and shook her head.

"Great, just beautiful," Danny muttered. "She can't speak, and she doesn't understand English. Okay, I'll go run her stuff through Interpol."

Flack was too busy being relieved to mutter thank you my Angel. "Okay, at least we're getting somewhere. Um, here," he handed her paper and his pen, made writing motions across the paper. "Can you write something for me?" She took the pen, frowned a bit, looking from him to the paper, "Just something, anything." Finally she tossed her head, squared her shoulders and wrote something, just a single line of something, handing it back with a bit of fire in her eyes. Whatever she wrote, she considered it a challenge, not the writing, she was challenging him.

"Five bucks says she just called you an asshole," Danny noticed too.

"Yeah, well, she wouldn't be the first." He looked at the paper; clearly she could read and write, so it wasn't mental impairment going on. "Well, it ain't English and it ain't Gaelic. I'm going to take this over to the UN and see if their translators can sort it out. Honey, you just wait here, I'm gonna have a policewoman…wait, why am I telling you, you don't know. Just…" He came around and planted her hands in her lap again, "Stay." Admit it to yourself, at least, he thought. You wanted to see her laugh again.

**Wednesday**

**5:00 pm **

**12th Precinct**

**Manhattan, NYC**

Three hours later he was back. He met Danny back in the interrogation room, where according to the policewoman, she hadn't moved.

Danny shook his head. "Well, I didn't get a hit off of Interpol, how about you?"

"Thirty-three different languages at the UN, and I got nothing. The best they could do was that it was kinda like German, but not really. And none of it was Slavic, so the bad guys didn't bring her from home. One guy suggested I fax it to the Language Line, and then to the Pentagon's language school. Between them we hit 175 languages, still nothing. I think she might have dropped from Mars," or she crawled out from wherever the fae folk live, he thought. Which made no sense, but nothing about this did, so what the hell.

"Great, just great," Danny thought a moment. "Okay, now for the big question, Social Services called, they can get her a bed in a shelter in about three months, maybe. So what are we going to do with her tonight?"

That was the question Flack had been wondering about all day. He knew what he wanted to answer, but it would be so wrong, surely. "You and Lindsey want to take her home?"

"Nah man, Lucy is cutting a tooth. I don't wanna take me home. I'll see if Lindsey has some clothes she can lend though, she looks about the same size. Send her home with Stella?"

"Nah, she's living with that guy now." And everyone else was a bachelor, so it was no better. Well, what the hell. "Okay Honey, looks like you're staying at Chez Flack until we can figure out where to send you." She just watched him with those bewitching eyes. He made a come here motion, which got her up and moving.

Oh yeah, he had problems.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

**Wednesday**

**5:45 pm **

**Don Flack's apartment**

**Somewhere in NYC**

Flack's apartment wasn't big. A small living space with a postage stamp of a kitchen just inside the door, a bedroom just big enough for the bed and a place to stand to get dressed, and a bathroom. By New York standards it was a palace. Still, it wouldn't take much to show her around.

"So this is the kitchen." She looked it over, picking up an apple, looking into the dregs of the coffee pot. "Kitchen, yeah, maybe, okay, and this is the bathroom." He opened the door and showed her the small space. She looked around like she hadn't seen one before.

And she left a gift in the commode at the hospital. Think the obvious, Flack, maybe she hadn't.

"All right look, this is the toilet." He flushed and she jumped back, startled, then looked over to watch the water go down. "You go in the toilet. You know, go? Go?" Oh hell, how do I explain this? "Okay, hold on." He turned her away, just outside the door and turned back, dropping his zipper. He could see her in the mirror over the sink. At the sound a strange, sad, hopeless look came over her face, and she dropped to her knees. When he turned back to see what that meant she was looking up at him, her eyes gone blank. And her mouth was open.

I am going to kill them, he thought. No, I can't, they're already dead. I am going to go down to the morgue and spit on their bodies for good measure.

"No, no, no, no, I am not like that." He took her by the shoulders and got her back on her feet, shaking his head to emphasize the point. "No, all right? That is not going to happen. Just," he pointed to his own fly, waved his hands over it, "no. You're safe here. Just stand there, all right. Stay." He stepped around the door again, and made his example, watching her confused face in the mirror the entire time. When he finished he pulled her back in. "Okay, come here." He pointed to the yellow water. "See that?" She looked where he pointed. "Good," he flushed and waved, "Bye, bye. You," he pointed, "do that. Got it?" They shared a smile as the light of comprehension came into her eyes. "Now, do you know what this is? And this?" He held up the toilet paper and the soap, and got smiles and nods to both. "All right, so we use the soap to wash our hands, like this." He started the sink, and watched her get nose to faucet with the water, clearly amazed that there was water coming out of there. "Yes, we have running water here. Now you do it." He passed her the soap, and watched her wash like she'd been doing it all her life. "So you do know how to wash. But I bet you never saw a shower before. Here." He turned it on and adjusted the temperature. She looked shocked at the water coming down. He picked up the soap again and handed it to her. "Okay, now get in there and do the rest of you." No response. "Watch." He started taking off his clothing, only to have those eyes go wide as she backed into the corner. "No, no, no, I am not going to do that. See, this is what you do." In his underwear he got into the shower, let himself get wet enough, and then went at his chest and hair with the soap. "See, you wash off, then you rinse it, then you get out and get dry with a towel. See?" He rinsed, got out, and started drying off, while she looked at him. Then her eyes just flicked at the door as she started to smile. "That would be get out, wouldn't it?" He got out.

He stepped out of the bathroom to give her privacy, just as someone knocked on the door. Muttering curses he yanked his jeans back over still-wet hips, checked the peephole, and cursed some more as he opened it. There stood Danny Messer, one hand full of bags, the other holding a pizza. Danny looked his now damp friend over. "What'd I miss?"

"Modern plumbing 101, introduction to running water. Get in here." Flack locked he door behind his friend and padded after him down the short kitchen hall.

"You're shitting me." Among the other things in the bags was a six pack. Danny helped himself to one after divesting himself of his load. "I grabbed some of Lindsey's clothing from the Goodwill pile, and she had me stop for a toothbrush and hairbrush. I also brought dinner. She's really not housebroken?"

"Nope, this is definitely a new thing for her." Flack picked up the bag with the clothes and toiletries and cracked the bathroom door enough to shove it in. "I'm not looking, I'm not looking, I swear." He came back to the table, and opened his own beer. "This morning she didn't know elevators or seatbelts, or cars I don't think. She knew soap but not running water, toilet paper but not toilets. Where the hell do you get that combination?"

"I have no clue. Think she'll figure it out?"

"If the steam level in there is any indication, she's a fast learner."

"Well, while she does that, want to watch the game?"

They settled in front of the TV, and waited. And waited. Eventually the water went off and they still waited. About the fourth quarter, when Flack was just about to go check, she finally came out.

She looked a lot better clean. She'd come out barefoot, in one of tank tops from the bag, clearly with no bra underneath, and a pair of jeans she'd neither snapped nor zippered. The bruises and marks of her recent captivity were still there, but in between was fine, creamy skin. But her hair was clearly her glory. It fell in thick, honey-brown ripples all the way down to her thighs. Both men stopped with their beer halfway up. I am officially bewitched, Flack thought, this could be trouble. "Hey, come here." He motioned her over, and snapped and zipped her pants. "You want those to stay up." She watched him, played with the zipper a few times, then sank to the floor next to him. "No, no, no, here, up here," he pulled her up onto the sofa next to him, and offered her a slice. She took it, holding it like he did, looking utterly confused. "Like this," he showed her how to bite the end first, which she copied, then watched as her eyes grew wide and her smile spread. "First pizza, huh? All right." He grinned back at her, and offered her a beer. "I kinda doubt you'll like it, but you're welcome to try." She seemed to know how to handle the bottle, sipping first and then drinking deeply, "Huh."

"So, she knows beer but not pizza. I don't know Don." Danny shook his head. "You have a genuine mystery going here."

"Yeah, I do," and it's captured me. Oh, Pop, I wish I'd listened closer to your stories. I'm in trouble now.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

**Thursday**

**2:33 am **

**Don Flack's apartment**

**Somewhere in NYC**

Something woke him. He didn't know what but somehow he knew something was wrong.

After Danny had left he made Honey a bed on the sofa. While he was sorting sheets and pillows she was looking over his book shelves. He could have sworn she was looking for something. "Help yourself," he had said, "Not that you can read any of it." But she'd pulled nothing from the shelf. Eventually he got her into bed, and then turned in himself.

Now something was wrong.

He'd had enough sense to pull on pants to sleep, so he didn't feel the need to dress further. Instead he found his gun, and carefully made his way out to the main room in the apartment. There he found Honey, sitting straight up, her eyes wide and wild. After a quick check he decided that there wasn't anything else in the apartment, all the doors were locked.

"Hey, hey, what woke you, huh?" He turned on a low light and came to sit by her. She looked like something had terrified her in the night. "What is it? Did you," he pointed to her, "have a nightmare?" He pointed to his head, and then made a gesture he thought might be scary, something like the wolf man in those old black and white movies. She sat there for a moment, watching him, looking like she was trying to catch her breath, and then slowly nodded. She looked around the room, as if to remind herself of where she was, then nodded again, more surely this time.

"Aw, yeah, well, it's understandable. You've been through a lot. We don't even know how long you've been with those bastards. You need to talk to someone about that. I just wish I knew who. It's okay, though. Here, you lay back down." He eased her back to the pillow, then pulled the blanket up over her. "How about I leave a light on this time, huh? It might make it better." He flicked the light on in the bathroom, left the door cracked just like he would for a kid. Then he took himself back to bed and sighed.

She needed help no doubt about it. They had no idea what exactly had happened to her at all. But he didn't know how to talk to her, or who her people were. And the Irish in the back of his head kept half-wondering if she was even human at all. Kinda dumb but there it was.

"A fae that drinks beer, Flack, you're an idiot." He said it to the ceiling light, then rolled over and went back to sleep.

**Thursday**

**7:15 am **

**Don Flack's apartment**

**Somewhere in NYC**

From the looks of it she'd been up for an hour or better, and much of that was spent rifling his kitchen cupboards. Not that she found all that much, he kinda lived off takeout. Still, she'd found some old flour in a bag that Jess had used for something, and had mixed some with water, and left it in a bowl on the counter.

"What is this?" He'd asked, and of course had gotten no reply. He was going to throw it out, but she took it from him and put it back on the counter, covering it with some paper towels. Magic, Pop's old voice told him, she's working a spell. But a spell in flour and water was the stupidest thing he'd ever heard of, so he left it alone and went for his shower.

"Are you ready? 'Cause we need to get some breakfast before we get to the station." He looked around at her and realized that that was a dumb question. She'd brushed her hair, and changed into the other shirt Danny had brought over, one of those t-shirts with the real small sleeves, when she got up this morning. Checking the bag he found an old pair of Lindsey's sneakers, a little battered, but still good enough. He offered them to Honey. "Here, these look to be still good. I remember Danny said Lindsey was complaining because everything went up a size with the baby, even her shoes. I'll get you socks." Thankfully she seemed to be familiar with laces, and the shoes were just a smidge too big. "Good enough, let's go." He opened the door and motioned for her to join him.

This became the first problem. She shook her head. She didn't want to leave the apartment.

"No, really Honey, it's okay. Come on now, no one is going to hurt you." Agoraphobia? Maybe. He wouldn't be surprised, given everything. But surely he ought not to let that settle in as a problem. He came back and took her by the elbow, gently guiding her toward the door. She all but literally dug in her heels, shaking her head over and over and wrapping her arms around herself for protection. "No, really sweetheart, it's okay. It's perfectly safe, you're with a cop. Come on now, come on."

**Thursday**

**7:35 am **

**Bob's Diner**

**Somewhere in NYC**

It took a good five minutes, but he finally got her out the door. It was a lovely late summer day, the kind where he wished he didn't have to wear a suit. He walked with her down the street, or more accurately, he all but wore her down the street. She walked so close to him that it was almost like having a third leg. In fact, she seemed determined to walk behind him, pressing up against him with every step. When he finally got her to knock that off she walked beside him with her arms wrapped around her torso, looking down at the sidewalk, not making eye contact, and trying not to bump into anyone.

"You can't be cold, it's gorgeous out." He muttered as he held the door to the diner for her. What the hell had they done to her, he thought. I am definitely doing some corps spitting soon. He led her into the diner, intending to sit in a booth, but she went all the way down to the furthest end of the counter, and almost tried to hide there. "Really, you are safe you know. You're starting to make me feel bad."

Betty, much beloved Betty, queen of his favorite diner, came around with the coffee pot. "Hey Don, bringing your latest in to rub my nose in it again, huh?" Betty was sixty if she was a day, and had been in this diner most of her life. She was a total comfort to him. "Nope, I'm working a case of all things. You haven't seen Honey here before, have you?" Utter long shot, but it never hurts to ask.

"Nope. You want your usual I guess. What does she want?"

"Now that is a good question. She doesn't know English, so I'm not sure how to ask." He blinked for a few moments as Honey held out her cup for coffee.

"Well, let's try this. Honey, you want that, or that or that?" Betty pointed to some of the others eating at the diner. One fellow had eggs and sausage, a woman had oatmeal, her son had pancakes. Honey pointed to the eggs and the pancakes.

"Which one?" Flack asked, trying to explain the concept in gestures, not a clue if he was getting through. It looked like she wanted both. "Maybe I'm not getting through."

"Well, hold on." She was serving pancakes to someone else, so as she swung by she pointed to them and asked "How many?" While offering one finger, or two, or three. Honey held up two. "Short stack, okay," Betty came back and yelled at the cook. "Joe, hold up an egg."

"What?"

"Hold up an egg." Joe held up an egg and Betty asked "How many?" It looked like honey had figured it out, because she held up two more fingers. "Heh, okay Joe, hold up a sausage." This time Honey held up four. "You know, that comes with toast and hash browns."

Flack was leaning on his propped fist, watching her order. "Do it. I wanna see where she puts it all. Bring milk and OJ for her too, just in case."

While their order cooked he watched her doctor her coffee. A fae who drinks coffee, he thought, not a chance. Still, there was something about her. She sipped and made a face. "What, you don't like coffee?" He shook his head with a question on his face. She shrugged as if to say the coffee was just all right.

In due time breakfast came. While he ate his scrambled egg product and toast, he watched her demolish the entire breakfast. The only thing she rejected was the margarine, setting it far away from the food. The orange juice was clearly new, and clearly delighted her. At the end she sat back and belched softly and apparently, unapologetically.

"Jesus, you must have hollow legs. I'll take that as a compliment to the cook. Come on then." He paid up and started out. She must have forgotten what bothered her earlier, but as they left she folded up a little again. She looked around more, but she still folded. I do not get this, he thought; I do not get this at all.

**Thursday**

**9:08 am **

**NYPD Crime Lab**

**Manhattan, NYC**

Maybe he ought to have left her at home. But there was nothing for her to do there, and they had to find out who she was and where her people were. So bringing her to the lab seemed the best place to start.

Now that she was clean they tried facial recognition again, nothing. As families connected with them to arrange for the return of the bodies of the girls killed in the raid they asked if any of them recognized her, nothing.

In the meantime she had been prowling every bookshelf in the department. Stella caught her before she wandered into one of the labs, intent on a shelf of manuals there. "Whoa, Honey, you can't go in there. Flack!" He came running. "We have to find a place for her to be during the day, she can't keep coming back here. Keep her in the conference room for now, but find a place for her tomorrow."

"Yeah, I know. I just didn't want to leave her at home alone. You know, there's no one to walk her, she might chew up the furniture." He parked Honey in the conference room with the usual "Stay," which she only did after looking at all the books in the room. Whatever she was looking for, she clearly wasn't finding it, and was clearly growing frustrated. "I wish I knew what you were looking for. Um, here," the room had a big monitor. He booted one of those TV show sites, showed her how to use it, and left her there.

**Thursday**

**12:45 pm**

**NYPD Crime Lab**

**Manhattan, NYC**

He came back with hot dogs and cans of soda, only to find she had turned off the TV, and was just sitting there. More specifically she was sitting there watching the people wander outside the glass walls of the room.

"Damn, you must be bored. Here," he'd stopped at the newsstand and picked up a stack of magazines, all picture heavy. "Hopefully this will help." For reasons he never really understood he chatted with her for the few minutes he took for lunch, while she ate all of one dog, and appeared to both discover and reject the soda. The funny thing was, he would have sworn she understood him, was actually listening.

"Soda is new too, huh, but hot dogs are familiar. It's another piece. But you, Honey are a walking puzzle."


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

**Thursday**

**6:45 pm**

**Don Flack's apartment**

**Somewhere in NYC**

They stopped on the way home for Chinese. She'd insisted on taking just one of the magazines with her, _Vogue, Glamour_ and _Cosmo_ all got a distressed look as she pushed them aside, but _Family Circle_ was apparently acceptable. On the way they ran across a newsstand, and he indicated that he would buy her more. She picked out some crafty ones, knitting, quilting, and a couple more with food on the cover. Either she was that kind of hungry or…

"You know how to cook?" He asked when they got in the door. He put the bag of Chinese down and fetched out his one skillet. He put it on the stove and made mixing motions. Then he pointed to her. "You, cook?" She nodded rather eagerly. "Well, okay, then if you want to cook, just send me with a list. I'll stop at the store tomorrow. Wait, how the hell are you supposed to come up with a list? Um, you…cook…what?" Every word was accompanied by a gesture, like some odd game of charades. "I…go to store…buy…food." Magazine pictures, he pointed to the food. "Bring home….put in fridge." He pantomimed all this out, "What food?"

She frowned for a moment, before comprehension dawned. She pointed to herself, pointed to her temple, then made a gesture that seemed to say "later". "You, have an idea, but later, tomorrow? Um, okay, we'll see what happens."

They sat down to the Chinese, which was clearly entirely new to her. As he put the food put on the plates she gave him a measured look, then folded her hands and bowed her head. She sat like that for a moment, taking little glances at him from under her lashes. Clearly she was gauging his response. He just sat there and watched her, a little stunned, a little uncomfortable. When she lifted her head to look at him he had to ask. "You…" He made the sign of the cross. "…pray?" She looked confused. He repeated the question, this time drawing a cross on the table. She smiled and nodded. "Oh." He thought about it a minute. "That's good." Really, he had no opinion one way or the other. Other than to think that Jess might still be in on this somehow, and was just letting him know about things.

As they started she looked at him rather thoughtfully. Then she pointed at him, and made the flapping gesture by her lips. "Me, talk, you want me to talk?" He made the same gestures, and she nodded eagerly. "You know you're asking an Irishman to start talking, right?" But she was clearly, eagerly listening, so talk he did. About his job, his family, whatever came to him. He talked through the broccoli beef, the kung pao chicken and the fried rice. He talked while she carefully looked over and smelled the batch of goo she'd made this morning, and while she tossed it out and scrubbed the bowl and the rest of the dishes, (he was going to do them, she gently batted his hands away), and he talked while she mixed up a new batch. And he talked instead of watching the game.

He talked the rest of the night.

**Friday**

**4:45 am**

**Don Flack's apartment**

**Somewhere in NYC**

She was having another nightmare, rolling her head and silently crying. He turned on the lamp and shook her gently to wake her up. At first she jumped away from him, but when she saw that it was him she leaned into his arms.

He held her gently, ran a hand over her hair. She needs help to process all this, he thought, and maybe so do I.

**Friday**

**8:33 am**

**Don Flack's apartment**

**Somewhere in NYC**

Since she wasn't going to work with him he'd gone out for breakfast. McDonald's and lattes from the corner, and a box of doughnuts, all of which probably needed the prayers she said over them. That ought to keep her fed while he was gone. She didn't seem to like the TV, but the stereo system enchanted her, and she had the stack of magazines she'd picked up yesterday.

"Okay, you need to stay here today. Just stay inside, don't go out. God knows how you'd get around the city out there, so just stay." She nodded at the familiar Stay! gesture but then held up a hand to get him to wait. She made a motion like scissors. "You want scissors? Okay, here." He found them in his desk, only to feel her creeping up behind him. She also took paper, pencil and his bottle of white glue. "What is this, arts & crafts? You good now?" She was drawing something on the paper, something that turned out to be a clock, with it's hands set to noon. She made a come here gesture to the door, then pointed to him, the clock, and rubbed her tummy. "You want me to come home at lunch? " Damn," they were actually communicating this way. "Okay, I can do that. I'll see you then." He resisted the urge to kiss her cheek before he went out the door.

**Friday**

**12:52 pm**

**Don Flack's apartment**

**Somewhere in NYC**

He showed up home for lunch with two sandwiches from the deli down the block. She was waiting in the kitchen as he went by. There was a new batch of goo on the counter. "Hey, what's up?" She pointed to him, pointed to herself, then picked up a wooden spoon and made stirring motions in an empty skilled. He nodded "Sure, I want you to cook. If you want to." She then motioned him to come see what was on the table.

Two sheets of paper were covered with her neat, clear handwriting in her own language. Three others were covered with a row of numbers connected to a row of photographs cut from the magazines.

2 - a picture of a carton of milk

1 – a picture of a bottle of oil

6 – a picture of carrots

And so on down the line. It was, he realized, a very effective grocery list. He turned to her with admiration in his eyes and voice. "You are one smart lady, you know that? I am impressed. Hey, let me try something." While he ate he copied the list into his notebook, and then wrote the words down for the items next to them. She watched eagerly. "I guess you gotta start learning English somewhere. I'll pick this stuff up on my way home. And dinner for tonight, since you won't have time."

Wait until he told Danny about this one.

**Friday**

**6:57 pm**

**Don Flack's apartment**

**Somewhere in NYC**

He came home with the groceries, with take out Indian. Something was different when he walked in. Sure, she was listening to some of his jazz, which was kinda nice, and sure she was just sitting on the couch from what he could see, but something was _different_. He looked around as she came over to put the groceries away, but he couldn't put his finger on it at first. Something just…just…

It was the faint scent of pine in the bathroom that gave it away. His apartment was clean. Not just clean, but _clean_. The bathroom was shiny. Hell, the _floor_ was shiny. And there was ten times the amount of light coming in through the windows.

He went back to exaggerated gestures when he was speaking. "You cleaned house? You know, cleaned?" She smiled and nodded. "You didn't have to do that." She nodded. "No, really, you didn't, it's not like you have to pay me back." She nodded like she understood, then looked around at the floor and wrinkled her nose. She pointed to the bathroom and the refrigerator and outright pinched her nose, sticking her tongue out. "Oh, so you're saying I'm a lousy housekeeper, is that it? I'm bad at cleaning." If a smile and a nod could talk smack, hers did. That just set him laughing. "All right, fine. Clean my house. I don't care."

The Indian food was clearly new to her, and she was clearly not that into spicy. He showed her how to balance out the spicy with cool, crunchy, with the nann bread he'd brought. But she seemed rather offended by food that bit back, which started him laughing all over again. Which started her laughing. I haven't laughed so much since Jess, he thought. Bet she's laughing too.

**Saturday**

**3:18 am**

**Don Flack's apartment**

**Somewhere in NYC**

He held her as she shuddered through another nightmare. During the day she seemed fine, but at night the demons came back to haunt her.

"I wish you could talk to me, Honey. I wish you could tell me everything that happened. I'd fight them with you. I'm a cop, fighting bad guys is what I do. I'd fight for you." He cooed to her gently. He only wished she understood.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

**Saturday**

**6:12 pm**

**Don Flack's apartment**

**Somewhere in NYC**

He'd ended up working today, since neither crime nor the NYPD took weekends off. He'd left early this morning to meet Danny in the gym, and bully his friend's ass through his PT while he worked out. PT was never fun, but Danny knew he had to in order to keep his legs under him anymore. Before he left this morning she'd made him show her how to work the stove and oven, as if she had never seen one before. She claimed she could cook, but she'd never used an oven, serious. And this morning it looked like the third batch of goop met her approval. She put it in an old spaghetti sauce jar and put it in the fridge.

This time around he came home with neither groceries nor food, but instead he came bearing gifts. He was now buying gifts for a strange girl whose name he didn't even know. Somewhere up there an Angel was laughing at him.

The scent hit him as he was coming up the stairs. Something smelled absolutely heavenly. There was spicy in there, and some kind of fruit, and bakery and maybe meat. No there was definitely meat. He followed his nose, just out of curiosity, and ended up with it nearly jammed against the door of his own apartment. That utterly heavenly scent was coming from his place.

He opened the door and headed straight to the kitchen. There was a tray of biscuits cooling on the counter, so fresh that steam was still rising from each perfectly fluffy round. On the stove was merrily bubbling what smelled like, and turned out to be, a pot of stew that smelled as good as his mother's. Hell, it smelled better than his mother's, more like the idealization of his mother's, which was saying quite a lot. That fruity, spicy smell was coming from the oven.

She got up from the sofa, came over and smiled at him as she shooed him away from the front of the stove. "You cooked all this, really?" He was pointing and questioning, and she smiled and nodded, then started fetching something out of the oven. It was an apple pie, done in that flat on a baking sheet style, more than likely since he didn't have a pie pan. It bubbled in syrupy goodness, adding that ultimate extra layer to the scent in the house. "Oh, my God."

He went around the sofa to change the music for dinner and spotted the contents of his underwear drawer spread out on the coffee table. "What the hell?" She spotted his face and came over to pick up a pair of his shorts and stick her finger through a hole. She'd found one of those hotel sewing kits he'd picked up somewhere, and had been patiently mending his underwear. "No, no, you are not going to sew up my shorts. You don't need to do that." Clearly the idea had hit him just in time, she must be impossibly bored. He collected the underwear, to her protest, and just kept shaking his head. "No, no, no. Really, Honey, no. Here, I brought you some things. I saw this." He gestured and then pointed to her knitting magazine, "and I pass this place on the way to work and, I thought, well I went in and asked…." The ladies in the shop said that they didn't know if it was the right thing, but it was worth a shot. He pulled out a couple of balls of a fine, cream colored yarn and a pack of sharp sticks, what they called double pointed needles. He was deeply, utterly gratified to see her face just light up. "You like, yes?" She nodded, taking the stuff and looking it over. "Great, beautiful." Good.

"And now this," he pulled a bound, blank book from the bag, fetched a pen from his desk, and gave it to her. "This is so you can write about this." He gently touched one of the barely there marks of her captivity. "The department shrink said it would be good for you to write, if you can't talk to anyone. So here." It was clear she didn't want to think about it, her eyes grew sad even as she smiled and nodded. "All right." It was the first time he'd really felt like he helped her on a deeper level than just a roof over her head. It felt right to him.

"Come on, let's eat." His stomach was trying to gnaw its way out. Her smile brightened, and she set the book aside for now to join him at the table. It was at least as good as his mother's stew. He found himself talking again, all through the meal, and after as she sat beside him on the couch and did what she was doing with the yarn.

**Sunday**

**2:10 am**

**Don Flack's apartment**

**Somewhere in NYC**

Another night, another nightmare. "Can you, well, not tell me, but…"He made the gesture for talk, and pointed to himself. She sighed, reached over for the paper and drew the stick figures for two men. The gestures and sketches she made nearly broke his heart. He held her for a long while afterward.

**Sunday**

**12:10 pm**

**Bob's Diner**

**Somewhere in New York.**

A whole two days off, and this one with Danny and Lindsey. They both wanted to spend some time with Honey, hoping to unravel her mystery. She still didn't want to leave the house; still didn't look comfortable walking down the street. He still didn't know why.

They met at the diner for lunch. The first thing Honey noticed was Lucy. She was instantly enraptured, something soft and longing coming to her eyes. She let Lucy catch her fingers, gently rubbed her head, and then pointed from her to Lindsey. Lindsey smiled, easily liking anyone who so clearly agreed with her that her daughter was wonderful. "Yes, she's mine." Honey then pointed from her to Danny and back, then laced her fingers. "Yep, he's mine too." That got a smile out of her.

They settled into a booth for lunch, the parent's taking the outside, to bracket the high chair, Flack and Honey taking the inside by the windows. He made it easy and just ordered her the same burger and fries everyone else was having. "So, Lindsey," He started the unofficial meeting by bringing her up to speed. "So far we know that she's never seen an elevator before she came to New York, or a seat belt."

"Yeah, and Danny was saying something about plumbing?"

"Yep, she'd never seen a flush toilet or a sink or a shower, but she had seen soap and toilet paper. She knew beer but not pizza, coffee but not a coffee maker, knows how to cook like a goddess, but I had to teach her how to use the stove. She never saw Chinese or Indian before. She likes to knit, too." Flack kept the bit about the underwear to himself. "She's been looking through every bookshelf she can find, even though she doesn't read English at all. I had to show her how to use the TV, and stereo, and I doubt she's ever seen a computer. Hell, we even had to show her how to put on pants and use a zipper. And she's been brewing this goo on the counter, something out of flour and water. It took three batches to get her happy and then…

"…and then she put it in a glass jar and put it in the fridge." Lindsey finished up for him.

"Yeah, how did you know?"

"Just a hunch. After lunch I want to go to the park."

"Yes, Ma'am." The burgers came and Flack watched Danny and Lindsey watch as Honey bowed her head. The look she turned on them after was a clear "What?"

They dug in, chatting all the while, but Lindsey was thoughtful. She was kind of playing with her fries, and then she started looking around the diner. "Hey, Don, you said she was looking for a book, right?"

"Yeah, why."

"Hold on a minute." She got up and went to another booth, one where two young guys in white shirts, skinny black ties and black name badges sat. Danny and Flack looked at each other, shrugged, and watched her. After a few moments one of them pulled a couple of books from his backpack and offered them to her. She took one. A few minutes more and she came back.

Danny had to ask as she came back. "Who were those guys?"

"Mormon missionaries. It's another hunch." She slid into the booth and started pushing stuff out of the way to make a little room.. "Flack, I'm guessing you mostly grew up in the Catholic Church, like this one here." She nodded at her husband.

"No maybe about it, St. Sebastian's, eight years of nuns."

"Right, which if that was anything like his education you didn't have to actually memorize bible verses growing up. I did, and I'd be willing to bet someone who still says grace after all she's been through did too." She put the copy of the bible she obtained from the missionaries on the table, and Honey's eyes lit up.

"Okay, so she wants to read the bible? She can't read English." Flack was still confused.

Lindsey had passed the bible over to Honey, who was rifling her way into it already. "I know that. And I bet she's smart enough to know that too. But when you memorize the bible, you do it by book, chapter, and verse, which is the same in any language. I've got a hunch she might have been looking for it to tell us something."

Sure enough, Honey was passing the book back over to Lindsey, pointing to a specific verse. "Okay, the first book of Samuel, Chapter one, verse two. _And he had two wives; the name of the one was Hannah, and the name of_.."

Lindsey got as far as Hannah when Honey reached over and poked Flack on the back of the hand. "Ow, wait, Lindsey, read that again." Lindsey did, and Flack got another poke as Honey grinned at him. "Hannah. Is your name Hannah?" He pointed around the table. "Lindsey, Lucy, Danny, Don…Hannah?" That got him a firm nod. "Well, Hannah. Nice to finally meet you." He reached over and shook her hand.

Danny was grinning too. "Hannah. Well, that's one more clue than we had yesterday. What about a last name?"

"Hm, good question." He started pointing again. "Danny Messer. Don Flack. Hannah…?" She looked around like she was trying to come up with the word, but shook her head. "In there, maybe?" He pointed to the bible, but she just shook her head again. Flack sighed. "Well, Hannah. At least we got that far."

Lindsey was still thinking. "I bet we can get a little further. Let's get to the park.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter seven**

**Sunday**

**1:30 pm**

**Central Park**

**Manhattan, NYC.**

Lindsey had a specific destination in mind. She started them heading toward the Plaza Hotel, and then struck out ahead, leaving Danny with the baby in the backpack. "Catch up with me." She tossed back as she jogged ahead.

Both men suspected where they were going. "I don't get it." Danny muttered to Flack.

"Neither do I," he replied.

They were quite a bit slower as Hannah, distracted by just about everything, was trying to look everywhere at once. But when they came around the corner, suddenly she was riveted.

There was Lindsey, standing there with one of the Hansom Cabs that gave people rides around the park. "Hey, Flack, got a couple of twenties on you?"

"Yes, why?" Flack paid the driver as Hannah went to get to know the horse. Clearly, she was horse comfortable.

"Because we settled on sixty, and I only have twenty on me." Lindsey watched with care as Hannah offered her hand to the calm giant, then began to run her hands over him like she was evaluating a bit, before coming back to his muzzle to stroke the soft velvet. "Hannah, can you?" She made some gestures the men didn't understand, but Hannah nodded firmly. "Okay, let's give it a try, everyone in."

They climbed into the carriage and took off on a meandering route into the park. Danny chuckled at Lindsey and gently teased. "You paid sixty for this? You know, these things only cost thirty-five. I thought you'd been in New York long enough not to get screwed, Montana."

Lindsey whacked her husband gently on the leg. "That's not what I paid him for." They came around a curve to a quiet spot and the driver pulled up. "This looks good." Lindsey turned and pointed to Hannah. "You, show me…" and she made the odd gesture again.

Hannah got out, nimbly hopped up beside the driver, picked up the reins, and made a smacking sound with her lips to get the horse moving. She easily drove the horse for a few minutes, utterly flummoxing the two men, bringing a smile to Lindsey's face. "Okay, good enough," Hannah pulled up the horse. By now they were on the other side of the park. "You three finish the ride, and take your time. Meet me back at the lab."

"The lab, sweetheart, it's our day off," Danny grumbled.

"Yeah, but I have another clue."

**Sunday**

**3:03 pm**

**NYPD Crime Lab**

**Manhattan, NYC**

After the ride and some time spent entertaining Lucy, they made it back to the lab. There they found Lindsey in the computer room.

"Hey Danny, do you remember our last trip to Montana, when we went to visit Uncle Charlie?"

Danny thought a minute. "Yeah, he was the one way out there in the middle of nowhere with the…oh yeah!" The realization dawned in his eyes.

"What?" They were on to something, Flack could tell.

Lindsey turned to him with a grin. "Where do you find toilet paper but no toilet? In an outhouse. Where do you find soap, but no faucets? In a home that still uses a well pump."

"Like Uncle Charlie's," Danny finished.

Flack turned to his friend. "You went in an outhouse?"

"Nah, I held it until we got back."

Lindsey ignored the exchange. "Where can you grow up and never ride in an elevator or eat Chinese; live in a house without running water; learn to drive a carriage, and make bread without yeast? In the country, Hannah here is a country girl."

Flack was stunned. Why hadn't he thought of it before? "You sure about that?"

"Yeah, I am. I went back and checked the addresses of the other victims in Google Maps. Even though they were all listed as urban areas, when you look at them, they're all at the edges of the urban growth boundaries, all rural, isolated areas. Look," she called the relevant images up on the monitor.

Danny nodded, "So all of our vics have a connection after all. They're all country girls."

"Yeah, and they all come from the same part of the country." She zoomed out of Google Maps to show how she'd pinpointed the location of each of the places where the other victims had gone missing. Most of the points were in upstate New York, with a couple over the borders into Vermont. "We've been assuming since she doesn't understand English that she's from another country. What if she's part of this pattern too?"

Just then Mack walked in. "Aren't you people supposed to have the day off? Do you have anything more on her?" He nodded toward Hannah.

Flack chuckled. "Yeah, Mack, meet Hannah, who apparently is a country girl like our Montana here." Hannah had been ignoring the computers in favor of holding and bouncing Lucy. It was a sight that did something odd to Flack's insides. Lindsey repeated her argument for Mack who nodded. "She could be a recent immigrant. Has anyone tried asking her yet?"

"I was just about to." Lindsey turned to Hannah, and gestured to the map. "Hannah, when you were small," She pointed to Lucy, "Where was home? Um…home." She found a scrap of paper and sketched out a rough house.

Hannah nodded, and walked up to the large monitor, looking at the map. She pointed to a section of the state roughly between Utica and Montréal, just over the border. Lindsey zoomed in, causing her to jump back, startled. But she smiled and pointed again, to an area well away from any highways. Hannah pointed again, north of the east-west road that ran between Ft. Drum and Lake Placid. Lindsey zoomed in two more times, before Hannah shook her head. She seemed to know the general area, but no specific town out there.

"Well," Mack said, "That still narrows it down to a third of the state."

"Yeah, as opposed to the rest of the world." Flack's smile was a little sad.

"So when you all get in tomorrow, start working the sheriff's departments in that area for missing persons. Ask about recent immigrants, but don't assume she went missing recently. We don't know how long she's been with that gang. She doesn't look any older than 25, so go back at least ten years. It's a place to start." Mack headed back to work, "Oh, and nice to meet you Hannah from upstate New York."

As Lindsey took Lucy off for a diaper check, and Hannah tagged along, Danny turned to Flack. "You don't look happy to know this."

"Ahhh, I don't know." Flack evaluated his friend. "If I tell you you'll laugh."

"I'll do that anyway, start talking."

Flack sighed, and told his friend about his grandfather, the tales of the fae folk. "I don't know, I guess I was hoping for something a little more special, you know."

"Hey, don't knock it. I think country girls are pretty damn special."

"You would."

**Friday**

**6:48 PM**

**Don Flack's apartment**

**Somewhere in NYC**

They had stopped at that yarn shop on the way home from the park. Hannah had marveled at all the colors, the textures. In the end she'd bought a set of straight sticks, and for all her clear enjoyment of the colors and softness she only chose a few balls of sturdy black wool meant for socks.

The rest of the week she knitted while he was at work, and cooked, cleaned and seemed to enjoy herself. She picked up more words in English, and even started teaching him a few in her language. And true to Montana's prediction, she baked him the best sourdough he'd ever had. He even brought home a real pie plate.

Today he stopped and picked up those bright balls of yarn. He had to all but force them into her hands, but eventually he got her to realize they were a gift, that he wanted her to have them. He was just glad he couldn't tell her that he was trying to make himself feel better as well.

Because after a week of trying every police and sheriff's department in New York, they had come to one conclusion.

There was no one looking for her.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

**Monday**

**3:13 pm**

**NYPD Crime Lab**

**Manhattan, NYC**

Hawks waylaid Flack in the hallway. "Hey, I heard about Hannah, is it? You got a name at least.

"Yeah," Flack replied, looking up from his file, "And almost a home town. More like a home wilderness. Turns out she's from upstate. And we were looking all over the rest of the planet."

"Well, you know, I was thinking about all the reasons why she might not be talking, traumatic reaction, things like that. But maybe we're getting ahead of ourselves. A friend of mine from med school is an ENT guy now. I bet I could get him to take a look at her for free."

"Sure, why not, sounded like a good idea to him. "Go ahead, just let me know. I'll get her there."

**Monday**

**7:23 pm**

**NYPD Crime Lab**

**Manhattan, NYC**

"Hey boss," Adam walked into Mack Taylor's office. "We've been going over the computer we recovered from the factory. We've found something."

Mack followed him into the computer room. "It looks like this computer was set up as a server. We found out that a number of different computers were logging in to it, up to a hundred times a day."

"Were they looking at any particular set of files?"

"Yeah, but it's weird." Adam pulled up the file, wishing he didn't have to show his straight arrow boss. A girl was on a table, naked, folded up like a pretzel. A clothed male arm held the front page of the New York Times up to the camera. Then it was pulled away, and the rape began. "That's one of our victims, Julia Cook. What's with the paper?"

Mack looked disgusted. "It's called proof of life. Anyone watching would know she was still alive on the day that paper hit the streets. I'd bet it was the families logging in, to see that their loved ones were still alive."

"So you're saying these girls' families had to log in to watch them being raped, just to know they were still alive? And they listed them as missing persons even though they knew where to find them? Why didn't they just go to the cops?"

"I don't know, but my first guess would be that they believed if they did their loved ones would be killed."

"So what does this gang hold over these families? I mean, why these girls?"

"That's something I'd like to know. Start looking into the families' financial records, I'll get…" He was about to say Danny and Flack, but anyone who hadn't noticed how close Flack was getting to Hannah was blind. And he knew she wasn't ready to be left alone just yet. "…Stella and Hawks to go meet up with the local PD and talk to them."

**Thursday**

**4:53 pm**

**NYPD Crime Lab**

**Manhattan, NYC**

Stella and Hawks were back from interviewing the different families. With few variations, the stories were the same. A father/truck driver was offered a lot of money to take a small package from Albany to New York. A fiancée was stealing drugs from the vet where he worked. A brother was helping some friends cook up some meth in the barn.

And then at some point they all decided to stop. The father realized he was moving drugs. The fiancée nearly got caught, and decided the extra cash wasn't worth his job. The brother's lab nearly caught fire, and would have taken the family farm with it.

And then, roughly a month later, a daughter didn't come home from school. A fiancée didn't come home from work. A sister didn't come home from the football game. The rest of the family filed it as a missing person; the cops got involved. But after a few weeks the case would go cold. Then a note would appear under a windshield wiper. Go back to what you were doing, or else she dies. Go to the cops and she dies. And the information to log into the server was there at the bottom. No other contact was needed, the gang didn't even have to see if the families were logging in; they knew the families would check daily just to see if their daughter/lover/sister was alive that day. Horrified, knowing they were guilty themselves, they each went back to work.

Except for one, the video of their daughter's brains splattering the other girls was all that was needed to keep everyone else going for years.

**Friday**

**10:27am **

**NYPD Crime Lab**

**Manhattan, NYC**

Adam flagged Mack down again, this time while he was in the hallway talking to Flack. "All right, so we were able to match every IP that logged in to the server to a victim and a family, except for one. This one…" he highlighted a list of IP addresses "…is all from the same computer, but it logged in from all over the state. So, I'm thinking a laptop."

"And which family did it belong to?" Mack looked over Adam's shoulder. Flack went to look as well, but Mack very deliberately put the view on a smaller screen, where Flack couldn't see.

"None of the ones we've found so far, which means, by process of elimination, it must be Hannah's."

"Can you flag it, so we'll be alerted if it comes online again?"

"Can do and have done, but I doubt it will help. It hasn't logged in to check the video in two years. And every IP that has logged in for the past two years has been verified."

When Mack turned around he found Flack standing there, quietly simmering. "Mack, please tell me that this doesn't mean that for the past two years no one has cared if Hannah lived or died."

"I don't know," was the kindest and yet most honest answer Mack could give. "But why would someone stop checking if they were still working for the gang? And if that person quit, then why keep her alive at all?" Mack turned to Adam. "Keep digging. The answers have to be somewhere."

**Friday**

**3:43 pm**

**Office of Dr. Samuel Rives**

**Manhattan, NYC**

"You know what, Doc? She's been through a lot, why don't you try it on me first." Flack hopped up on the exam table next to Hannah. They were in the office of Hawk's ENT friend, who was about to use a tiny camera to have a look at Hannah's vocal cords.

"All right Detective." The doctor agreed, and pulled out a second sterile cover for the camera.

"Now, you watch." Once again Flack was using hand signs, even though Hannah seemed to be understanding more and more. He opened wide, and felt the cold probe go down the back of his throat, triggering his gag reflex. It was all he could do to keep his stomach in place. "Well, that was less than fun."

"The good news, Detective, is that you have perfectly healthy vocal cords, now your turn Hannah." The doctor turned to her, and the tube slipped down easily. "Hm, no gag reflex, that's unusual." Flack just tightened his jaw and didn't answer. "Well, that's surprising." The doctor pulled the probe out and set it aside.

"How bad is it?" Flack steeled himself for anything. It's cancer, he thought, or they made her swallow acid, or she's got some horrid STD. It's gonna be awful I know.

"It's not, actually. There's a small band of tissue preventing the vocal cords from vibrating. It's not that uncommon a birth defect. Most of the time it's found and corrected well before a child starts kindergarten. When they don't start speaking on time it's found in the medical exam. I'm just surprised to see it in an adult."

"Nothing about this is surprising me anymore. So, how hard is it to fix?" Flack could feel himself relaxing. He smiled over at Hannah, who smiled right back.

"It's not. It's a simple procedure; I can do it here in the office. It shouldn't even take an hour. And given what little Shel told me about all this, I can probably find a voice coach willing to donate the time to help her learn to speak. But she will need to be mildly sedated, and that means I'll need her clear consent."

"So we're back to needing a translator, got it." He looked over at Hannah and sighed. I will sort this, he thought, I will give you a voice in all this. You may have been abandoned and forgotten, but I will give you a voice so you will be heard, somehow. I promise.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

**Monday**

**8:53 am **

**NYPD Crime Lab**

**Manhattan, NYC**

"Hey boss," Adam caught Mack on his way in to the office. "I worked the Saturday shift and kept digging through the protected files on that server, and I found these." He led Mack back to the computer room, where he showed him a series of stills of Hannah. Each had a copy of the NY Times in the corner. Each was just That Bad. "The dates start two weeks after the last time that other computer logged in and continued to the week before the raid. And the thing is the record showed that these were not accessed electronically."

"So why take them? Unless…" Mack thought a moment. "Lindsey theorized that Hannah comes from an area too rural for indoor plumbing. That could mean too rural for internet access too. So maybe they printed them out and dropped them in the mail. Once the laptop owner disappeared they started sending them to someone else in her family; which means that somewhere out there someone hasn't gotten an update in a few weeks, someone who cared enough that these pictures could be used to blackmail them. But we still haven't heard anything. Why?"

"Mmmm, I don't know." Adam hated saying that in front of Mack. It showed. "But I was thinking of something else. You know that snuff film they had in there? Well, we've been assuming that one of the gang killed Samantha Collins; how do we know for sure?"

Mack sighed. Adam was right. He just hadn't wanted to think about that. "We ask the witness."

**Monday**

**9:20 am **

**NYPD Crime Lab**

**Manhattan, NYC**

"Yeah, Mack. I'll go get her. But I want to be the one who does the asking." Flack's heart was breaking, even though he didn't let any of it show.

"No Don," Mack stepped into his office, motioned to Flack to close the door. "Look, I can tell, you're starting to have feelings for her, aren't you?"

Oy, Flack thought, not realizing he was turning color. "It is that obvious?"

"A little," Mack smiled. He wanted his friend happy, and this was clearly the happiest he'd been since they lost Jess. "I don't have to remind you that we don't know anything about her, where she's from, or how she's involved. And I don't have to remind you that she's still fragile from what happened. We found four years worth of images of her in that server, that's going to take a long time to deal with."

"Oh, Mack, come on! I've been a perfect gentleman. You know me better than that!" For a moment Flack was offended, but he knew his friend was just being, well, parental. "It's just, she's a good person, you know? She's smart, she's funny and she's a great listener. I dunno, there's just something about her." Flack had to admit, if only to himself, that the best part of the day anymore was going home to her. "Ya know, I took her to the Y with me the other day. Now she's teaching some of the girls there how to knit socks."

Mack chuckled. "It sounds like she's settling in well. But I don't need some defense attorney coming back and saying her boyfriend tampered with the investigation. You're too close now. You can keep working to find her family, but I'm taking you off the gang case."

Flack sighed, loudly. "All right, Mack, but you know, she might not know that those files exist. So, just, go gently when you ask her, okay?"

"She had to have known the cameras were in there. She looked right at them several times."

"Yeah, but she knows nothing about technology. She probably didn't know that they were recording what was happening for posterity."

"Good point," Mack nodded. "Don't worry, I'll be gentle."

**Monday**

**11:48 am **

**NYPD Crime Lab**

**Manhattan, NYC**

Hannah followed Mack into one of the interrogation rooms, while Flack and Danny watched through the window.

"Hannah, I need you to look at something." Mack turned his laptop to face her. He was using ASL as he talked, more than just charade gestures. He knew Flack had talked to the ASL translator for the department, but it was thought that she had to understand more English before ASL classes would help. By then she might have the surgery, and then the classes wouldn't be needed.

Hannah looked at the screen, then her eyes widened. She pointed to the screen with a shocked look, then to herself. "Yes, that's you." Then she turned bright red, covered her mouth and looked away, clearly ashamed by what she saw. "No Hannah, it's all right. You're the victim in all this. You have nothing to be ashamed of. You have nothing to be ashamed of." Mack didn't know if she understood, but at least she looked back at him, even though she was clearly deeply distressed. "Now, in this one." He turned to the snuff film. "The man with the gun," he made the gesture, and then pulled the morgue photos of the gang out of a file, "Is the man with the gun one of these men?"

She pointed to the video and made the gesture like a gun as she looked over the photos, then shook her head. If she understood correctly, then the shooter had not been taken down in the raid. A murderer was still out there.

"Do you remember anything about him? Was he tall, short? Can you give a description…well, no, you can't," Mack sighed. What he wouldn't give for a translator. Hannah was clearly thinking, however. She pointed to the video again, made the gun motion, then picked up a pencil and made drawing motions over her hands.

"What are you…drawings, on his hands?" Mack spun the laptop around and booted another file. "Tattoos, like this?" She looked at the pictures and nodded. "Do you remember the tattoos?" She nodded, fairly confidently. "Okay, I want you to look at these, find the ones he had. Danny will come help you."

She grabbed his arm before he left. She pointed out toward the building, waved her hand like she was referring to someone tall. "Don," Mack guessed, and she nodded. Then she pointed out toward the building, pointed to her eyes, and pointed to the laptop. "Did Don see those?" Mack spoke as he repeated her gestures. She thought a moment, and then nodded. "No, Don did not see those. Don will never see those." Mack crossed his heart, "Promise."

Mack stepped outside the interrogation room, where the other two men were waiting. "Danny, go see if she can map out this guys tattoos. Hopefully we can identify him that way."

As Danny left Flack stepped up. "Mack, if she can't tell me and I can't see what happened to her, how am I supposed to know how to help her?"

"By remembering you're a boyfriend in all this now, not a cop." Mack looked back to where Hannah and Danny were getting to work. "And like every other man who's had someone he loved hurt, you'll have to let her tell you in her own time. Giving her the control of that is part of the healing."

"Yea, I guess. It's just frustrating, ya know?"

"I know. If you want to talk about it, you know where to find me."

**Monday**

**3:33 pm**

**NYPD Crime Lab**

**Manhattan, NYC**

"We got a hit." With Danny's help, Hannah had identified many of the tattoos on the man she had seen. As they were identifying marks, they were logged into the database. Danny had run that particular combination, and the computer gave back a file.

"Victor Porchenko, age 36, originally from Vladivostok," Danny went on to read the rest of the file, a list of petty, mostly gang and drug related crimes. "About six years ago he dropped out of sight. I'm guessing he found a way to farm out the risk, and get his rocks off doing it."

"Russian mob," Mack came up behind him. "They play rough."

"The tats fit. Looks like he's been working his way up in the family. No one's ever been able to get him on anything major."

"Kidnapping, torture, and first degree murder is pretty major. I'd bet that's why his men were ordered to kill all the girls, to eliminate the witnesses. Good thing he doesn't know they left one behind."

Danny chuckled. "Yeah, and for now she's safe. I'll warn Flack to be careful, not like he's not already playing guard dog around her. And I'll check with the mob boys, see what they know about him."

"Great, thanks Danny."

**Monday**

**6:32 PM**

**Don Flack's apartment**

**Somewhere in NYC**

"Okay, we need to talk." Hannah was never good walking around the city. She tended to walk with her arms wrapped around her, shying away from people, even as she tried to look in windows and at buildings as they passed. But on this commute it had been ten times worse. He couldn't even get her to look at him.

"Come here," he gently dragged her over to the sofa, and then knelt in front of her. "I did not see what was on the screen. I did not, I swear. And I don't care about what was on the screen." He gestured as he spoke, making pushing away gestures at the TV. "I see you, okay, I see you. I see someone who…" he made a gesture like he was knitting, and then picked up the half finished sweater that was just Lucy's size. "..has some amazing skills. I see an incredible cook. I see someone who is so smart, I can't believe it. I see someone who is strong enough to survive. I see someone so beautiful." He sighed and shook his head. "I see you. That's all. I see you."

He didn't know if she understood any of it at all, but the look on her face softened until she was near tears. Then she leaned over, and gently kissed him on the cheek, right there. When she pulled back and looked at him he knew; he saw it in her eyes.

She was falling in love too.

"How the hell did life get so complicated, huh?" He didn't bother to gesture that one. Instead he just took her hand. "Come on, let's go get some dinner. It won't be as good as yours." He held her hand as they went out the door, and the rest of the way.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten**

**Saturday**

**10:19 am**

**81****st**** St. Subway station/Museum of Natural History**

**Central Park, NYC**

As much as he could, given his schedule, Flack had been taking Hannah around to see the city. He had taken her with him to the YMCA, at first to watch him shoot hoops with the kids, but almost as soon as she pulled her knitting from the I Love New York bag he'd found for her she'd been surrounded by a small flock of girls, all demanding that she teach them something. He'd explained to the girls that she couldn't talk, and didn't understand much English, but many of them came from immigrant families and didn't mind a bit. She'd become a fixture now, and her knitting group tended to follow the basketball boys around, knitting while they watched the game, occasionally thrusting their knitting into her hands to have her show them how to work this bit.

On his days off they started with the various parks and outdoor places while the weather was still nice. She loved Central Park, clearly, and had been utterly thrilled by the Statue of Liberty. It was when she saw it, he realized, that she really figured out that she was in New York. He still smiled when he remembered her face as she looked back at the skyline, utterly flabbergasted.

Today, however, it was raining, and so it was time to start on the museums. The subway was the easiest way to get there, of course, but it also had other perks. Whatever bothered her up at street level bothered her more in the cars. He wanted to fix it, but he also could not complain about the way she turned to press against him, face to face. He just put his arm around her gently, and she didn't complain at all.

He was, after all, a gentleman, not dead.

The platform was crowded. He took her hand to guide her toward the steps, looking back from time to time to make sure she was following. But, about halfway there something caught her eye. She turned, let go, and started pushing through the crowd, trying to get back to the outgoing train.

"Hannah!" He grabbed her, tried to keep her with him, but she jerked away. "Hannah!"

Just as she got back to the main platform, the doors of the train closed. She stopped, clearly upset as the train headed into the tunnel. "Hannah, what the hell?"

He'd never seen her so upset before. She silently made her feelings known, stomping her foot and angrily waving her arms. When he tried to grab her, pull her into an embrace, she actually smacked at him a little, pushing him away, clearly mad at him too. Finally she ended up at a bench, when she plopped down and ran her hand through her great mass of hair.

"Hannah?" All this came as a shock to him. Normally she was so calm, so gently easy with everything. She'd become his little oasis at the end of every crazy day. "What? What is it?"

She gestured toward where the train had gone, made the talk symbol by her mouth, and then pointed to herself.

"It talks you? It talks like you? You saw someone on that train who speaks your language?" He gestured with it, and got a very emphatic nod. Well no wonder she was pissed. He stood there and cursed a blue streak for a good five minutes. While he cursed he was wondering how the hell they would ever find that needle in the haystack of New York, when his eyes caught something.

"Hey, Hannah, look." He pointed toward the camera by the ceiling. "We can go see what they look like and maybe find them again. Come on." He took her hand, and headed for the lab.

**Saturday**

**10:43 am**

**NYPD Crime Lab**

**Manhattan, NYC**

It was a good thing Danny and Lindsey were on shift; Flack knew they would help them. "Hey Danno, we need some help. Hannah thinks she saw someone on the 81st Street platform who speaks her language. Can we see the security cams?"

"Sure thing, come on." They went into the computer room and accessed the files. "What time?"

"About twenty, thirty minutes ago," Flack told him exactly which camera.

"Got it," Danny flipped back through the images. "All right, there are the two of you getting off the train." Forward a few minutes. "Okay, Hannah, look there."

Hannah frowned at the moving pictures; she was still not very video compatible. After Danny played it a few times she finally pointed to a spot on the screen. Flack looked over her shoulder to see her pointing to two women in funny hats. "Must be the headgear, Danny muttered, "Maybe we can look it up."

"What headgear?" Lindsey walked in to see what the others were doing and her eyes went wide. "Oh my god, I am an idiot! Hannah…" She turned to face the other woman. "…are you Amish?"

An utterly relieved look came over Hannah's face, and she nodded.

"What the hell is Amish?" Flack felt like he'd been lost at the last left turn.

"Good question," Danny'd been left at the same turn.

"They're a religious group. They believe in plain, simple living. Um…" Lindsey had no idea how to put this in a way these two urban dwellers would understand. "Okay, very, very simplified version. You know the Hasidic Jewish communities up in Brooklyn, the ultra-orthodox ones that try not to have anything to do with outsiders?" Both men nodded. "Okay the Amish are kind of, sort of the same idea only Christian and rural."

Both men looked at each other, "Ohhhh."

"Remember when my parents came out for a visit a couple of years ago, and they wanted to see the country around here? We went upstate for a few days, and I remember stopping at a couple of Amish farm stands. I don't know why I didn't think of it before." Lindsey was typing as she spoke.

Flack was hiding his anger well. He had no clue what Amish was about, but he had a NY cop's working familiarity with the Jewish groups in Brooklyn. Good people, he knew, who made good neighbors. He knew their girls tended to be the very quiet, very modest, very innocent types. And he knew how much that would doubly hurt them if they ended up in a place like that factory. If Lindsey was even half right, the whole level of bad just got worse. "Okay, so how does that help us?"

"Well, most of the Amish speak Pennsylvania Dutch as well as English. I'd bet that's her other language. Knowing that, we can find a translator."

"Yeah," Danny broke in. "But we tried all the translator groups, they all came up zero."

"Ahh, but that's because Pennsylvania Dutch isn't spoken outside the US. It's considered an American dialect, and so it wouldn't be covered by the international translator groups. Here we go," she put a page of contact information up on the screen. "Dr. Karen Silverman. She's an anthropologist who's written several books about the Amish, as well as the definitive text on their language. And she teaches right here at SUNY."

Now that had Flack grinning, "Outstanding Montana! That is just what we need." He pointed to the screen and made gestures at Hannah. "She, is gonna talk, to you." For that he not only got a grin, but she flew into his arms as well.

**Saturday**

**1:15 pm**

**NYPD Crime Lab**

**Manhattan, NYC**

It was like riding a roller coaster. They managed to reach Prof. Silverman's TA, who informed them that the professor and her husband had left last week for South America. Three months up the Amazon.

Flack started cursing again.

The TA said that she didn't know of any other speakers in the city, but she did know of one man, a Luke Yoder, who lived outside Utica. He had a unique background, she said, which might dispose him to be more of a help. But he didn't have a phone; he could only be contacted by mail. This could take weeks.

By now Mack had wandered in to see what was going on. "Get his address." He said. When they hung up with the TA he turned to Lindsey. "Contact the sheriff in that area and ask him to go explain the situation to this Mr. Yoder. Hannah is the only witness in a murder investigation; I'm not willing to wait for the mail."

**Saturday**

**4:48 pm**

**NYPD Crime Lab**

**Manhattan, NYC**

"Mack, I just heard back from Sheriff Williams." Lindsey caught up with the boss in the hallway, close to where Flack and Hannah waited, all thoughts of the museum gone. "He spoke to Mr. Yoder, who said he would come help us."

"Good," Mack was pleased. Flack felt like dancing.

"That was the good news. The bad news is that Mr. Yoder refuses to travel on a Sunday. He said he'd be out here first thing Monday morning. And the Sheriff spoke to the local bishop, the head of the Amish church in the area. He hadn't heard of any Amish girls going missing in the past five years."

Flack frowned. "We keep going three steps forward and two steps back."

"Yes, but we're gaining one." Mack was still pleased. "Bring Hannah back with you on Monday."

**Note**: I don't mean to offend anyone with my references to or descriptions of religious groups. I'm just trying to write the way I think the character would explain things.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

**Monday**

**12:10 pm**

**12th Precinct  
**

**Manhattan, NYC**

The first thing Don Flack noticed when they got off the now familiar elevator was the smile that suddenly beamed out from Hannah's face.

He followed her gaze down the hallway, and saw Mack standing there with a stranger. Not all that strange a stranger, by New York standards, but something new to him. The man standing there wore some kind of boots, loose black pants, a black jacket, and a blue shirt. No buttons, he thought, that's what's off about it. He also wore an odd looking black hat and a fringe of beard under and around his chin. The face between beard and hat was in its late 20's, and quite frank. The man in question was carrying a handful of books. Instantly Flack regretted having worked that extra shift yesterday, and not having time to do research on the Amish.

They met in the middle of the hallway and Mack made the introductions. "Don, this is Luke Yoder. He's here to act as our translator. Mr. Yoder, this is Detective Donald Flack, who's been working on this case. And this is the young lady in question, so far we only know her as Hannah." Flack shook hands with the fellow, who nodded and then turned and babbled something at Hannah. He didn't offer Hannah his hand, and she didn't seem to expect it. Instead she made something between a nod and almost a curtsey. "Why don't we use interrogation room six." Mack suggested, turning to lead the way, "and Don, I get him first."

"You get me first?" Mr. Yoder looked from one man to the other, looking both curious and amused. He had a heavy, yet gentle accent. Flack had to wonder if Hannah would sound like that when she started talking. He found himself hoping for that.

"Yes," Mack replied. "When we found Hannah here she was being held against her will by a criminal organization. We have reason to believe that while she was being held there she witnessed a murder. That's the case I'm investigating. Detective Flack here has been working with her, trying to help her recover and find her family. The murder case gets priority, as I've been lead to understand that you can only stay for the day?"

"Ya, harvest season is starting. I cannot be away that long."

"May I ask you something first, sir." Mack opened the room and led them inside, after collecting a handful of pens and a couple of pads of paper along the way. Flack went to stand behind the mirror, where Danny was waiting, a camera already set up. "The professor's TA suggested that you would be the best one to help us, may I ask why."

Mr. Yoder sat on one side, across from Mack, while Hannah sat on the short side between them. "Every church group is a bit different, but for most of them there is a time, usually between sixteen and twenty, sometimes a bit longer, when you are free of childhood rules, but have not yet been baptized into the church, and so are also free of the rules of the ordnug."

"I'm sorry, the what?" Both Mack and Flack started taking notes.

"The ordnug. The rules of the group that governs what is expected of you as an adult member of the community. During that time in between you are expected to explore the English world a little, so you can better decide if you wish to follow such strict rules as an adult. It's usually called Rumpspringa, or running-around time." Mr. Yoder grinned. "I ran around more than most. I was eighteen when 9/11 hit. I joined the Air Force and did a tour in Afghanistan before I came home to settle down, join the church, and marry. So I am more familiar with the English world than others."*

"I was in the Marines myself for many years. That's good to know, thank you for coming." Mack was clearly happy hearing this. So was Flack. "One thing, English world?"

"Not Amish," Mr. Yoder turned to smile at Hannah. "So, what is it you need me to ask her?"

"Well, let's start with the basics. Her name, age, and address."

Mr. Yoder translated, and she instantly started writing. He then translated her words back for Mack. "Hannah Fisher. She was seventeen when they took her. She does not know her address, she never needed to." He asked her something else, and studied the response before looking up at Mack. "I asked her what Bishop her family followed; some have more conservative beliefs than others. Her family followed one of the most conservative. She said they did not have addresses because mail was a way of being connected with the world, which was discouraged."

Three steps forward, two steps back Mack thought. "So she's twenty-one now. How do we reach her family?"

"After the harvest season, before the winter begins, there will be many gatherings. Auctions, weddings, that sort of thing. I will ask around, see who has heard of this Bishop. We can find them from there."

"Thank you Mr. Yoder, that will be very helpful. But if she can tell us more about her family, perhaps we can use that to help her."

He asked and she wrote. "She said her parents died the year before she was taken. Their buggy was hit by a car. The driver had been drinking. And she says she never wishes to see her brother again." He looked troubled by this.

"Why? What did her brother do? Ask her to start at the beginning."

She started writing, and writing. At the end of the first page she handed it to Mr. Yoder, who started translating. "She says her brother, Ben, left during his time of Rumpspringa, off into the English world. He did not come back until after the death of her parents, when they were going to lose the farm. He joined the church, but did not give up his English friends and ways as he was supposed to. They would come to the house and drink, and smoke stuff that was not tobacco. It made them stay up all night, and act very badly. Her brother had boils on his skin, and his teeth went bad because of it, or so he told her. He always made her stay in her room when they were there."

Danny looked over at Flack, "Hello meth problem."

Mr. Yoder started reading the next page. "One day some of the men from the factory came to the house." He looked up confused. "There are no factories in our area, I do not understand,"

"She was held in an abandoned factory." Mack opened the file and pulled out the pictures of the men from the raid, and the suspects they had yet to catch. "Ask her which ones, please."

Mr. Yoder did so, and she pointed to two of the dead men. He went back to reading. "They talked to her brother for a long time. The next day he built a shack behind the corn crib. It was very poorly built. A few days later the men came back." Mack stopped him to ask which ones again, this time she tapped four of the dead men, and the missing suspect, Victor Porchenko. "They brought a truck full of boxes and bottles, large ones, and put it all in the shed. After they left her brother told her never to go back there, not even past the barn, ever again. When the wind blew wrong there was a nasty smell, and the cows would get sick. The smell even fouled the milk."

Flack looked over at Danny, "Hello meth lab."

Mr. Yoder started on the third page. "She knew it was a bad, English thing, whatever was in there, so she went to talk to the Bishop. He tried to talk to her brother, but her brother would not listen. So when he was gone for three days for the wedding of his friend the Elders came to the house and looked in the shed. The next day they came back with some younger men, dug a dry well, and poured everything in the shed down. Then they buried what they could and took the rest away to be burned."

Danny winced, "Hello pissed off Russian mobster."

They were on the fourth page by now. "Her brother was furious when he came home. He beat her and told her it was all her fault, and he locked her in her room. That night the men came back. There was much yelling in the front yard. Then her brother forced her down to the porch, and pushed her off it, into the arms of the men. They dragged her into their car and made her sleep. She stopped writing there."

"I can guess what happened next." Mack looked grim. He pulled out another picture, this of a young woman. "Ask her if any of these men killed this woman." Mr. Yoder asked, and she tapped the picture of Victor Porchenko. "Ask her if she would be willing to testify to that in court." This prompted a brief exchange, but in the end she looked at Mack and nodded. Mr. Yoder gave him a sheepish smile. "I had to explain to her about "court."

Hannah was looking thoughtfully at Victor Porchenko's picture. She wrote something else, and passed it to Mr. Yoder. He read it, and clearly asked for clarification. An exchanged ensued, one that left Mr. Yoder looking quite sad and grim, and during which Hannah tapped the pictures of nearly all the men.

Mack needed to know. "What is she saying?"

Mr. Yoder tapped Victor Porchenko's picture. "She says this is the first one to rape her, but they all did." He clearly wasn't happy to even relay that on.

Flack's jaw clicked audibly, "Good-bye Russian Mobster."


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter Twelve**

**Monday**

**1:43 pm**

**12th Precinct**

**Manhattan, NYC**

Mack Taylor asked Hannah Fisher a few more questions, with Luke Yoder acting as translator, before he was done. "Mr. Yoder, is there any way we can contact you that's faster than the mail service, or less intrusive than asking Sheriff Williams to track you down?"

Mr. Yoder nodded. "I do not own a cell phone, nor can I buy one, according to the rules of the Ordnug. But I know my customers have gotten service on my farm. If you have one to loan, I am sure my Bishop would understand in this case."

"I'll see what we can arrange. Thank you again for your help, Mr. Yoder. I'm sure Detective Flack will want your help as well, I'll send him in." Mack got up, and went to the other side of the mirror, where he joined Flack and Danny. "Well, that settles it, she's a good witness, and is willing to testify. We're going to work with the Organized Crime unit on this one. Don, I don't want you to go anywhere near Porchenko, or anyone else in that family."

"Why not?" Flack's jaw was still clicking from the built up tension.

"Because I'm afraid you'd kill him before he could be brought to justice." Mack could be brutally honest when he needed to be.

Danny looked at his friend. "He's right, you would." He looked over at Mack. "He would."

Flack ignored his friend. "So what do you want me to do, Mack?"

"Concentrate on getting Hannah back on her feet. Isn't living well supposed to be the best revenge? Don't worry; I'll keep you in the loop. Just stay away from Porchenko;" Mack took his notes and headed off.

All the while Hannah and Mr. Yoder had been talking or, more specifically, Mr. Yoder had been talking, and intently. Movement caught the eyes of the men as Hannah went to write something, and Yoder stayed her hand.

"Now what the hell is this?" Flack wondered out loud.

Yoder kept talking, and as Flack watched, something in Hannah's face broke. There was no other word for it. Whatever pretty otherworldliness she'd had quietly cracked, fell away, and was replaced by something broken and sad. She shook her head, and then bowed it, but Yoder just repeated what he'd last said, with more force. When she looked up, her face was wet with tears. After a little more he stopped speaking; after a little more, she slowly nodded.

That was quite enough for Flack. He collected his files and went into the room, all the while trying to act as if he hadn't seen or heard a thing. "All right, Mr. Yoder, thank you again for coming. I've been trying to help Hannah here get her life back together. I guess the first thing to talk about is her condition, the not speaking thing." Flack launched into what the doctor had told him, about the problem, the surgery and what could be done. All the while Hannah didn't quite look at either of them. When he was finished she started writing again.

"She says she wants very much to have the surgery done, but she does not know how to pay for it." Mr. Yoder read.

"Tell her he's doing it for free. Well, he's getting the money back on his taxes. Do you guys pay taxes?"

"Ya, we do." Mr. Yoder explained, and read the answer. "She says she will do it."

"All right," Flack was watching them both carefully, even as he took notes and passed papers to be signed. Yoder was all business, Hannah just looked wrong. "Good, now, um, Mr. Yoder, you might as well know that she's been sleeping on my couch. I don't know if that's going to offend anyone back home or not."

"She has yet to be baptized into the church, and so is not under the rules of the Ordnug, and so it is no business of anyone." He spoke with matter of fact dignity.

"Good, that's good." No, it wasn't. Some part of him knew it wasn't. "So is there anything else I can do, to make it easier for her here?" Yoder translated it, but she just hunched over and shook her head.

Okay, we need to get rid of Yoder here. This has gone downhill with him. "Well, I guess that's it then."

"Ya, oh, here," he pushed one of the books he brought over to Hannah. "I brought her a bible, in case she wanted one." He said something else that had her nodding, even as she didn't look above the blue of his shirt.

Flack looked at the second. "A Pennsylvania Dutch to English dictionary? Now that is helpful. Thank you very much Mr. Yoder." Go, Flack thought, there's something wrong. I didn't need to hear that the little fae in the pipe, my country mouse, was the victim of another scumbag junkie, and she doesn't need to hear what you're saying now.

The last few things were said, and then thanks and good byes. Flack walked Yoder out, was going to get a car to take him to the train station when Yoder grabbed his arm, suddenly serious. "Tell me now, English, do you care for her?"

"Yes, I do, why?" The alarm bells ringing in Flack's head tripled their tempo.

"Then do not let her go back, even when this is over. Marry her yourself or find her a position, perhaps as a maid, but _do not let her go back_. It would be very bad for her, very bad." The car was here, he was leaving. "Good luck, English."

"Yeah, thanks, now what the hell was that all about, Flack wondered, as the translator headed out of sight?

**Monday**

**9:18 pm**

**Danny and Lindsey Messer's apartment**

**Somewhere in NYC**

Later that evening they went to dinner and a movie at Danny and Lindsey's. Every instinct told him something was wrong, which was what he told Mack, which was why she spent the rest of the afternoon waiting for him in the break room. He'd walked by the door one time and saw her sitting with her knitting in her lap, frowning at it, dry eyed.

Over Danny's most excellent pasta dinner she'd been even more fascinated with Lucy than usual. When she didn't think anyone was looking she'd look over at the baby with a combination of sadness and longing that twisted something deep in his gut.

What the hell did Yoder say to her? He thought.

Now the baby was down and it was time for the movie, something Lindsey knew of called _Witness_. A murder mystery, she said, set among the Amish. Harrison Ford played the cop. She thought they would like both the plot and seeing a narrow slice of Hannah's world.

It lasted all of three minutes.

About the point where someone started talking about a horse with one ball she got up and went into the kitchen. He followed her to find her silently standing over the sink, crying. "Hey, what's wrong?" He tried to pull her to him, but she pulled away, cupping her temples like her head hurt. "No, come here." She just pulled away again.

"Everything all right?" He couldn't blame Montana for sticking her head in the door.

"No. I don't know why she's crying."

"Maybe she's just homesick."

"Yeah, maybe."

"Hey, if you guys want to head out it's okay. Take the movie with you for another time." Lindsey went to box it up, and explain to Danny when he grumbled.

"Yeah, okay, thanks."

He took Hannah home, watched her walk with her arms around her chest, her shoulders hunched. Watched her trying not to cry and almost making it. He watched her hurting and had no clue what to do.

What the hell did Yoder say to her? He thought. What the hell did he say?


	13. Chapter 13

**Monday**

**9:18 pm**

**Don Flack's apartment**

**Somewhere in NYC**

The trip home had been tense, no two ways about it. But it only got worse when he locked the door behind them.

Hannah stood in the middle of the main room, her hand over her mouth, looking around as if seeing it for the first time. When she turned to him she looked so sad, worried and regretful but deeply sad, all at the same time.

He watched her take a long breath, a deep sigh. He watched her make a decision. He watched her set her shoulders, and give him a long, measured look. Then he watched her pull her shirt over her head.

He did not want to look at her scars, did not want to know the meaning behind each still red line. He did not want to look at her curves, even though he had been dreaming of them for what seemed like months now. He did not want to know her like this, with the pain hiding in her eyes. And when she came over and started undoing his belt he did not want her, even though he did. "No. Stop. Honey, no." He tried to stop her but her hands were nimble and quick and they'd be inside his pants before long and he knew that was a reaction he couldn't control. "Stop. Okay, just stop. What's gotten in to you? He took her hands and stilled them, and that was when she broke.

She crumpled into his arms, her face contorting. All he could do was hold her as he eased them both to the floor between the door and the desk. She cried wildly, if silently, sending what should have been howls into the air, pounding on his chest. That's what this is, he thought, this is grief. She is grieving something, and there isn't a God damned thing I can say. He could only hold her, hold her through the storms until they passed and she was sniffling into his shirt, soaking it through.

"Shhh, shhhhh," was all he could say, when the worst of it was over. Eventually he reached up, snagged his sweatshirt from the desk chair, and pressed it against her, so she could cover herself.

When she had herself back under just a little control, he slid around her just enough to grab pen and paper and that dictionary from the desk. He pulled her into him, wrapped his arms around her while he wrote. .It took him a few minutes to replace the words, and he was quite certain his grammar was shit, but at least the meaning would get through._ "What did Yoder say to you?"_

She took the pen from him and wrote, then the book and translated herself. _"He remind me I cannot go home."_

"_Why not?"_

"_The others would say I no good now._"

"_Why not?"_

"_They believe happen once, you pray God protect you from it again. It happen more than once you did not pray, you must have wanted. Enjoyed. That is sin. When I tell Mak, Luke Yoder know."_

His arms tightened around her_. "That is wrong."_

"_I know. Luke know. The bishops, the elders, the others, they believe."_

"_That is wrong."_

"_I know. They do not change."_

"_How would they know what happened if you do not tell them?" _Is Yoder in on it? Out of 250,000 Amish in this country did we manage to pick the wrong one?

"_My husband would know."_

"_They expect a virgin?"_

"_They expect one who knows nothing at all."_

He chewed on that for a while.

"_Do you want to go back?"_

"_Yes and no."_

"_Why yes?"_

"_I dream of Amish home, when I am there, in that place. I live to go back. I want home so much. Now can never be. Hurts to give up."_

Then don't give up, he thought. There has to be a way._ "Why no?"_

"_I want stay with you."_

He buried his nose in her hair, breathed in the scent of it. _"Stay with me." _He felt the broken sob come from her.

"_I not know what am I to you."_

Time to jump here, Flack, he thought. Let's see if your ass can swim. _"You could be my wife."_

"_I not good wife for you. Not know how be English wife."_

"_I do not want an English wife." _If you're an Amish wife, that's what I want. _"An Amish girl has spoiled me."_

She was quiet for a long moment. Something warm and wet landed on his arm, He realized she was crying again as she started writing. _"I not good wife for you."_

"_Why not?"_

She was quiet a few moments more. When she wrote, it was too hard and tore the page, and she left him to translate._ "I afraid of baby."_

Now that made no sense._ "You love Lucy, I can tell."_

She shook her head, he could feel it rolling against his chest, could feel her frustrated sigh._ "I live on farm, I know how baby made. It hurts. I no want that again. Please. Please." _

She was begging. He could feel it stab at his heart. "_I will never hurt you."_

"_Then you never have son. You need good wife_." She went to get up, get away from him.

He pulled her right back into his arms. _"It does not always hurt. It can be good."_

"_Not for me."_

"_Those were evil men. That matters."_

"_Not for friends back home who already married. They hurt too. They tell."_

Of course, he thought, bastards fumbling in the dark, getting sex ed from the horses and cows. _"We will get your voice fixed, and teach you to speak. Then I want you to talk to someone, a woman who knows these things. Please."_

"_And what of you, until then? Do English women not all the time?"_

"_Is that why you took your shirt off?"_

"_I must be English now. Even if not good at being English. Even if afraid. I must try."_

His arms tightened again. _"I do not ever want you to be afraid of me, ever. I will wait for you."_

She sagged against him._ "I get voice, I talk to woman, I wait until then. What am I until then?"_

He wrote, but couldn't find the word he was looking for. _"What is the word for the time before marriage?"_

"_Betrothal."_

"_How long? Who knows about it?"_

"_Six weeks, eight. Your parents, his parents. Very private."_

"_For the English it last longer. One year, two."_ She looked back at him, incredulous. He nodded.

"_Too long. Baby come before wedding."_

"_That happens, yes. Or it is time to heal. Be that for me, we will make an Amish home here."_

This word she already knew in English_. "Yes." _He could feel her sobbing again. This time it felt like a good thing.

He hugged her tightly and kissed the top of her head_. "Sleep with me. Not that. Just sleep."_

That made her start laughing_. "Bundling."_

"_What". _

"_You and betrothed put on all clothes, sleep in same bed. Time to talk, be alone."_

Now it was his turn to look incredulous. She nodded. Well, he thought, that explains the six week rule, less time for counting on the fingers. He scooched her up and pointed her toward the bedroom. Once there she kicked off her shoes and flopped on to the bed, still in her jeans and his sweatshirt. He was glad he'd brought the dictionary in with him. _"You do not need your clothes. I will behave."_

"_Then what do I wear?"_

"_What you usually wear."_

"_I wear these."_ He frowned. In all the times he'd woken her up from her nightmares he'd never really looked closely at what she was wearing. He went to the other room and fetched the shopping bag that held the donated clothes. Jeans, t-shirts, tank tops, some of his socks, a pair of Lindsey's old sneakers. That was all. No pjs, no night gowns. And, he realized, no underwear. He came back in, dug out one of his old undershirts and a pair of boxers and passed them to her, then took the dictionary out to write another note while she changed. _"Tomorrow I have the day off. We are going shopping. Clothing for you. Something Amish."_

When he came back in she was sprawled out on her stomach, looking blissfully happy. When was the last time she was in a real bed, he realized. Pipe to hospital to my couch. I should have taken the couch myself. He passed her the note, getting a smile and a shake of the head. Tomorrow, he thought. He pushed her over enough to get a space, turned out the light.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter Fourteen**

**6:10 am**

**St. Sebastian High School sports field**

**NYC**

Now no cop in their right mind would ever voluntarily go see a department shrink for anything more than a quick question or two. None of them have a bleeding clue what it's like to be out on the street, college egghead assholes, the lot of them. So when it came time for the required visit after a critical incident, like, say your fiancée being shot and dying on you, it was far better to put your game face on and make them believe you were just as fine as any angel in heaven. And you were, after all. If you were weak enough to really need a shrink, well, could you really be trusted to have someone's back? Besides, they all bowed to the brass, you know, those reports of theirs were always coming back to bite someone in the ass, and that someone might not be you.

But a priest, oh now, a priest was different. You never knew when you carried a badge. Take the wrong corner, slip up one second, just be on the opposing side of someone's Very Bad Day, and the next thing you know it's you and St. Peter having a pint before he let's one of New York's Finest into the ultimate retirement. It did well to always be on the rights with God so it was only the smart thing, then, to have a priest on your side. Besides, confession was good for the soul and couldn't be repeated in court or to IA.

So while seeing a shrink was frowned upon by the other cops, no one questioned what went on between a man and his priest.

Which was why Don Flack, Jr. joined his old friend Ryan McMurphy Jr., aka Father Ryan, for a few miles around the track of the high school where he worked three mornings a week.

Father Ryan was, in fact, a five way whammy. Not only was he a priest, _Point One_, but he'd also been a friend since St. Agatha's first grade. He'd been there for everything from hockey in the frozen street to May Kellerman after the fall dance, when they were all of fifteen. He knew all the high points of the past, and all their ramifications and results, which was _Point Two_. His old man was also a cop, one who served with the legendary Don Flack, Sr., and he had three brothers and two brothers-in-law on the force. In fact, it was only by virtue of him claiming a Higher Calling, and his mother's subsequent Putting Her Foot Down that Ryan wasn't a cop himself. So he had damned good second hand knowledge of what it was like Out There, something you couldn't get out of a book (_Point Three_).

And if after the seminary the Diocese sent him to college to become a shrink, one who specialized in critical incident psychology and dealing with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, well, that's was no one else's business. But it was _Point Four_, and why the unflappable Don Flack Jr. stayed so unflappable. He could tell Ryan anything from what happened to the guy who killed Jess to how he really felt about Mack Taylor, get a thoroughly professional opinion, and Ryan could and would always claim the seal of the confessional.

Besides, he knew Ryan's Big Secret – that the only reason why he took the collar was because after nothing but Gifted classes, and having both boys graduate high school at sixteen, Valedictorian and Salutatorian (Ryan got first because he was taking the collar, that was the only difference between them), both Don Flack Sr. and Ryan McMurphy Sr. insisted their sons follow them into the police academy, and both refused to have anything to do with any paperwork that would allow their boys to become egghead liberals who forgot where they came from and thought they were better than their old man. Ryan was the one with the balls to stand up to his old man, lock it in his pants and find a way to go to college anyway.

Flack respected and envied him for that.

And Flack was the only one who knew that next year, as soon as Ryan had that all-hallowed PhD, he was telling the church to go straight to the hell it created. Because there had never been any calling, both men had fallen about as far away from the church as you could get. As Ryan put it over his third pint one night, if there was really a God running things then he was one sick perverted sonofabitch, so it was a hellofalot healthier to believe the evidence, that there was no one running the show at all. Flack raised his own pint, and agreed with _Point Five_.

The problem was that the Bishop, who was beginning to suspect that Ryan's faith was nothing but a show, had sent him away for the summer on retreat, which did nothing for Ryan's faith, or lack thereof, but did give him a chance to nearly finish his dissertation. The end result was that Flack had to spend the first chunk of their first run of the fall getting Ryan all caught up.

"And you want to marry this girl?"

Yeah. It's like she's this perfect little fae thing who grew up in Tir Na Og, where everything was beautiful and clean and not the crap of New York, ya know. Then some evil king from our world snatched her out of there."

"And you're the knight in shining armor who rescued her. Your metaphor is crap, you know that? And you need analysis. Let's stop, damn it, I've just spent three months on my ass."

"Then running is good for you. Why is my metaphor crap?"

"Other than that you have a savior complex as wide as the East River? Because if that was the perfect fairyland then the lost princess would be welcomed back with opened arms, no questions asked, and the knight would be everyone's hero. Instead they're planning to punish her for disturbing their perfection; it's the princess' fault for getting captured by the evil king in the first place. And you, Mr. Knight, ought to have left well enough alone."

"For serious?"

"They weren't looking for her."

Ugh, Flack thought, good point. "So now what?"

"To make use of that painful metaphor, think of fairyland as a cage. Gilded and clean but still a cage, built out of conformity. There's something very safe about a cage, you can't get out but nothing can get in. So long as everyone plays along that cage stays intact, and everyone has the sense of being safe, but if one person tries to be themselves, poof, the cage is gone. Ergo, if the evil king pounced, then the cage wasn't secure, which means she had to be breaking the rules of conformity. Now that the evil king is gone she's been trying to hang on to that cage, to reestablish the rule of conformity even if only in her head, because it represents the only safety she's known. Yoder made her realize that she can't do that and be in any way honest enough with her self, not even honest enough to maintain her own sanity. Your job is to help her learn that she can be safe in this big, confusing world without a cage, and so be free to fly."

"Yeah, but she wasn't the one breaking the rules. She didn't let the evil king in."

"Doesn't matter. She's different now; she threatens the stability of the cage by existing."

"That's not fair."

"A cop thinking life is fair."

Flack chewed on this for a half a lap. "So what do I do?"

"What you've been doing. Keep communicating, encourage her to try those wings, don't turn away from her even when it gets real sticky. Don't let her try to slip back into that cage, as much as she will have to mourn the loss of the beauty of it. And remember, the world out here isn't kind to fae, a lot of the time it expects a kind of conformity of its own. You're going to be fighting at both ends."

"What if in the end she wants to fly away from me?"

"If it's really love, you have to take the risk. You know this."

"You're a joy in the morning, you know that?"

Father Ryan laughed at his friend. "That's what you get for making me run before coffee."


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter Fifteen**

**Tuesday**

**7:48 am**

**Don Flack's apartment**

**Somewhere in NYC**

Flack had stopped on his way back home that morning at the market on the corner for sausage, Post-it tabs, and the paper. Every morning about this time he crossed his neighbor in the hallway, and he had stocked up ahead of that meeting.

He had a plan.

"Hey Jerry," he hailed his neighbor, who was just heading out. "Is Marge up?"

"Hey Don," his happily newly wedded neighbor smiled politely. "What's up?"

"I couldn't help but notice that she gets a lot of catalogs." They landed in the oversized mail slot nearly every day. "I need some for a project for work, I was wondering if she had any to spare."

"Are you kidding?" Jerry scoffed. "Go ahead and knock, save me from taking the recycling out this week."

Five minutes later Flack was in his apartment with a file box full of catalogs, making a pot of coffee before working on translating a note.

_Good morning, Honey. While I cook breakfast you go through these, see what you think you might like. That way we know which stores to go to today._

_How do you like your coffee, darker or lighter than this?_

He took the note, box of catalogs, and post-it tabs into the bedroom. She had once again claimed most of the real estate, and was sprawled on her stomach, her hair draping over her like a whisky brown silk shawl. Part of him had to laugh when he realized he was so far gone he even found her snore charming.

He had learned the hard way to not touch her to wake her, not unless he wanted her to shoot across the room and land in the corner, cowering in terror. So instead he made more than a little noise putting the cup on the nightstand. He grinned as she looked up and sleepily blinked. "Good morning, sleepyhead." He passed her the note, to which she nodded, and then sorted the catalogs onto the bed while she took a quick turn in the bathroom. By the time she came back he had them into piles of underwear, clothing, and house stuff. He left her there, snuggled up against the pile of pillows, starting to go through them with curiosity.

By the time he'd showered, got dressed to his undershirt and jeans, and made scrambled eggs, sausages, and some of her sourdough bread as toast, she had gone through just about all of the clothing and underwear catalogs. All but three had been dumped back in the box as rejects. Although he would have gone to the moon and back to give her whatever she wanted, he was pleased to note that what had caught her eye was comfortably within a cop's budget. Come to think of it, with her cooking saving him from eating out three times a day, he was actually coming out a little ahead. He couldn't wait until she understood enough English to know how dear her cooking skills were to his chowhound heart. This morning, though, he was the cook. He brought in breakfast in bed for two, and settled in next to her.

Okay, underwear first, he thought. But he noticed that all those catalogs were in the reject pile. He pulled over the dictionary. _No underwear?_ She shook her head, pointed to the reject pile. He gave her the why gesture, making it her turn to pull over the dictionary. _Too many people. They bump. They hurt. I want covering. _Well, that explained why she walked around kinda hunched over. It was understandable that she would be feeling vulnerable, and wanted to protect herself. And a t-shirt provided no kind of protection, he should have realized that. She was looking down at her smallish chest, and writing another note. _Wish I not have at all._ Damm, he sighed, there are some things that you just can't address in a short note. He thought about what Jess used to wear to work, to keep herself from getting too bruised if she had to take down a perp. That got a smile, as his angel helped him out of a jam again. _On bottom?_ She pulled out one of the rejected catalogs, traced the line of a thong and put up a skeptical eyebrow. "Yeah, I always wondered about that myself." _I know where to go_.

She flipped through the three remaining books quickly, looking for something specific and then held it open to a picture of a skirt with a frown on her face. A very nice skirt, for all he knew about women's clothing, khaki, just above the knee, conservative cut. He pointed and shook his head, a question on his face. She pulled over the paper and sketched a stick figure with a skirt well below the knee. Now where had he seen all kinds of women in long skirts? Oh yeah, what Lindsey said, Brooklyn. _I know where to go_.

She smiled and nodded and settled in to take a closer look at shirts. One place seemed to hold her attention more than the others, and she started marking those with the tabs. She seemed drawn to simple shirts, the kind that looked like what he wore to work. She looked over one, in a delicate print of some kind, with a wistful smile, before turning the page. He noticed and stopped her, giving her the why gesture. _Too proud._

_You do not have to dress Amish. Get what you like._

She shook her head and turned the page.

He turned it back and pointed to his note again. Then he took a tab and marked the page.

She rolled her eyes, but left it. And when he looked back to his book her cheeks were pink, but her smile was happy.

After a few, and a half dozen tags she set the book aside and went to brush her hair. He watched with an appreciative eye, as he did every day off. She went to twist it into its usual knot when he stopped her. _Why up?_

_Is modest. Proper._

He pointed to the note he'd written before. _You do not have to dress Amish._

_Is too long._

He winced when he wrote it, but it was her body and her choice. _Cut_?

She turned to look in the mirror behind the door. It hung to her backside, but the last foot or so had yet to regain any luster after her time in captivity; even Flack had to admit that. She looked at him and made a scissors gesture. He sighed and nodded. She looked confused and went for the book. _Where big scissors_?

_We go for haircut_. He paused when he could see the argument in her eyes, held up a hand so she would wait. _Neater that way_. "Just, please, don't cut it all off." No clue if she understood that or not.

While she was in the shower he had another cup of coffee, and sent a quick text to Stella. Where's a good place to take her for a haircut? And where's a good place for workout gear? Stella sent him back a couple of places, one where he made and appointment.

While he was on the phone she wrote another note. _Much darker, heavier, cream mixed milk. This mop water._

"Ouch." His coffee was not that bad, it was not that bad.

She just silently giggled.

**10:11 am**

**SportsGear**

**Brooklyn, NYC**

Flack looked over a copy of the sports bra she had taken into the dressing room, after he translated the idea of trying things on. It was firmly, if not heavily padded, and promised to hold them snug against her chest. It was also white and thick and solid. As were the boy shorts that she'd chosen, that would cover her from waist to upper thigh, missing being bloomers by all of two inches. He was used to silks, satins, delicate laces that teased and tempted and were chosen for his benefit, not her comfort. But this, this, "This looks like something my Great-Aunt Mabel would wear." Patience, this is why it's a virtue.

**11:13 am**

**Tznius Boutique**

**Brooklyn, NYC**

The first shop that catered to modest Jewish ladies was pay dirt. They would be going back with two full and heavy shopping bags from this place. Not a clue what it all was, the owner had been upset enough by a strange man in the place, she managed to keep him in a chair by the register and well away from the dressing rooms by sheer force of will. Language barrier be dammed, they were taking care of Hannah today, whether he liked it or not. He felt rather run over by a train.

**1:00 pm**

**Zalman's Hot Dog Cart**

**Manhattan, NYC**

Thank God for New York street food.

**1:20 pm**

**LL Bean**

**Manhattan, NYC**

She'd marked nightgowns and shoes here as well. They could finish up in one spot. How he managed to get through a day of shopping and only hit three stores he'd never know. It was a miracle. Well, four, she'd want to stop at the yarn shop, he knew. And five, he wanted to stop at the place that sold kitchen stuff. The corner market didn't count. But the yarn shop had big, comfy chairs where a guy could read while his lady took her time, so it didn't really count either. Anyway, his private angel knew how much he hated to shop; Jess must be saving his bacon once again.

_All blue?_ He asked when he saw her armful of shirts. She tugged over the book, but before she could even start translating he unfolded his note from that morning. _You do not have to dress Amish…_

She went back to the racks, and started choosing her colors again.

**2:35 pm**

**Cassman's Apothecary.**

**Manhattan. NYC**

It was a total spur of the moment stop. But he thought she might like something other than Head and Shoulders and Irish Spring in her showers.

Not only did they walk out with lavender soap and shampoo and such, but they had a rack of antique reproduction hair clips and combs and things, which clearly caught her eye. He gave her the why look as she turned away, then before she could go any further held up the note. _You do not have to…_

A half dozen landed in the bag.

**3:30 pm**

**Oleander Salon**

**Manhattan, NYC**

A salon did not smell right, too chemical, for one thing, and too perfumy. Give him a proper barbershop any time.

While they had waited for her appointment he translated a quick outline of what was going to happen, figuring she'd never had her hair done before. And he told the stylist to go slow and think sketches and charades.

After a good thirty minutes the stylist came out and fetched all the shopping bags. "If she's gonna show off for you, she might as well show off."

"How do you know she's showing off for me?"

"You gotta be kidding, right?"

Fifteen minutes later the conversation died down, and he looked up. The full denim skirt that was cut to look like jeans at the waist but touched her bottom of her calves somehow made her look more womanly, but would blend in on a New York street. The pale green shirt brought out the green in her eyes and the reddish hints in her hair. They'd not cut her hair too short, it now came to mid-back, was held back at her temples with some of those antique clips, and new bangs curled over her forehead in an appealing sort of way. But what really set it off was how she was standing so much taller somehow, as if she wasn't ashamed of what she saw in the mirror anymore.

His smile was starting to hurt his face.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter sixteen**

**Thursday **

**5:43 pm**

**Rucker Park**

**Harlem, NYC**

He was in the middle of running some chest pass drills with the YMCA kids when one of the girls who floated around Hannah in a cloud of yarn ran over and tugged on his elbow. "Hey Don, Hannah's sick or something."

He followed the girl around the corner of the community building, to where Hannah was huddled on the loading dock, in the corner, hidden by the dumpster. She was all curled up in a tight ball, and she clearly wasn't seeing any of the concerned kids around her. "Hey, hey Honey. It's okay. I'm right here. Come on out of there now, come on." It wasn't until he gently touched her cheek, got her to look in the direction of his eyes that she finally focused, and then all but leapt into his arms and buried her face in his shoulder.

"I think it's a flashback." One of the girls said with all her eleven years of confidence. "My brother's had them ever since he got back from Iraq. Whenever there's guns around he goes and hides in his room in the corner. Mom told me never to go in there when he's like that." Some of the other girls nodded sagely.

Flack was relieved to see that none of them were freaking out about it at all. This was New York, they were used to much stranger. "You know Danae, I bet you're right. But I didn't hear any gunfire, so what do you think might have set her off."

One of the basketball squad, who'd followed out of curiosity, spoke up. "Why not just ask her?"

To which one of the girls shot back, "Because she can't talk and her English is no good."

"That's true, but I'd still like to know what set her off." Flack was gratified to feel her relaxing against him, if by inches. "Someone tell me what happened right before she took off."

All the girls started up. "It was those two guys."

"Yeah, the two that came over after their game."

"The ones who were talking funny?"

"Yeah, those two, she was watching them real close. And then she kind of slid away from them."

"Yeah, then she ran away."

Hearing that the boys started chiming in. "Those two white dudes?"

"You mean the ones that were talking all funny?"

"Hang on, they were playing two on two against my brother."

Flack caught that. "Hey, Darius, go ask your brother to come here. And see if they're gone." In the meantime he got Hannah to her feet. "It's okay Honey, it's okay Mo Chroi, I'm gonna keep you safe, it's gonna be okay." She was still trembling by the time he got her upright, but she was looking less fearful and more embarrassed than anything.

Darius took off, came back with his older brother in tow. "Hey, you know anything about those two guys?" Flack asked.

"You mean those two Russian dudes?" The older brother replied. "Nah, they're tourists. Said they just wanted to give it a try here. They're not bad though."

"Russian dudes, that explains it." He led the small parade back to the court, his arm around Hannah's waist the whole time. "Do me a favor," he asked the girls, "From now on sit right up next to the court, Okay? If she gets upset again I wanna be close." The girls grumbled about being that close to authority, but agreed.

Sweet Honey, he thought, I got to get you talking that poison out of your heart. I've got to.

**Tuesday**

**10:48 am**

**Office of Dr. Samuel Rives**

**Manhattan, NYC**

"Well, the surgery was a success." were the doctor's first words when he came out of the waiting room. "But…"

"But?" Don did not want to hear any buts. Getting the pills down her this morning to start the sedation had been bad enough. Then she had started to flip out as they put her under. He'd thought ahead and let them gown him up so he could be there until she was completely out, but she'd still been terrified. "But what?"

"It looks like her vocal cords were severely strained against that band of tissue. There's been some damage. She should still get some of her voice back, but I don't know how much."

Don sighed. Severely strained, more than likely by unheard screams. "Well, at least she'll have something. So, what do we do now?"

"After what happened when we put her under I want you back there when she wakes up. She should sleep off the sedation by this evening, and she'll have a sore throat for a couple of days. Think cool soup and ice cream for a day or two. Don't encourage her to try to speak until she sees the therapist next week, that way the swelling has a chance to go down. You've already got the pain pills and the antibiotics, right?" Flack nodded. "I doubt she'll need more than one or two of the pills, after that Tylenol should do it, but make sure she takes the whole week of antibiotics, just in case. You may have to crush them into applesauce for a day or two."

It was all so simple and easy, Flack thought, in, out and done. He'd be grumbling over the effects of belief on all this with Ryan in a day or so. "Sounds good. I can't thank you enough. So when can I go back."

"You thank me, my accountant thanks you. This is going to do wonders for my tax bill. Come on, you can go back now.

**Tuesday**

**10:59 am**

**Office of Dr. Samuel Rives**

**Manhattan, NYC**

Even before her eyes fluttered open Hannah felt her heart triphammering in her chest. The sleep, the awful, unnatural sleep that meant that something even worse was going to happen. She gasped and forced her eyes open to see what horrors were coming next.

The room was light, and clean, and she was lying in a bed that was very nearly comfortable. No darkness, no bugs, no leering men. Just cool, light and quiet.

And then an oh so familiar pair of blue eyes swam into view. "Hey, good morning sleepy head." That deep, calm voice said. "It's all right, you're just waking up. I'm here. Just don't try to say anything. Just shhh." Hannah smiled at the sound of his voice. She'd known ever since she'd seen him at the end of the pipe that whoever owned that voice was safe and kind and good, and that nothing bad could ever happen around him. He would protect her, she knew, which was good because now that her heart was calming that sleep wanted to drag her down again.

"No, no, come on. We have to get moving. Let's go." He did that for some reason, he tended to narrate everything, this constant stream of comforting chatter. She thought she could wrap his voice around her like a warm shawl, and keep out the cold of fear. Do with me what you will, she thought, just never stop talking to me.

**Tuesday**

**11:25 am**

**Don Flack's apartment**

**Manhattan, NYC**

Hannah really didn't like the black and dark in his apartment. It reminded her too much of cellars and other dark, dismal places where bad things could happen. But it was the closest to home in this strange world of the English, and so it was the only place to go. Especially now when she just wanted that strange, heavy sleep to go away. Besides, the bedroom was lighter. She was babbling to herself. She could feel herself drifting even though she was still standing.

He was still talking, that warm stream of sound. "Can I get you anything? You want your nightgown, something?" Mmm, yes, nightgown would be lovely. Clothing was lovely. It was comforting, comfortable….

Don turned from where he was pulling out a clean nightgown to find Hannah, her eyes closed, shedding her clothing into an untidy pile on the floor. She must be really knocked by the drugs they gave her, he thought, and then he tried so hard not to laugh or say anything. When she had shed everything she flopped, naked, onto the bed, and was probably asleep before she had a chance to bounce.

He thought about leaving a note, saying that he hadn't looked, but that would be a lie and he didn't want to lie to her. He was human, after all, and she really was lovely in his eyes. So instead he just pulled the blankets up and draped her nightgown across the bed where she would find it. "You are going to be so embarrassed when you get up." He murmured. Then he kissed her and left her to sleep.


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter Seventeen**

**Tuesday**

**7:48 am**

**Don Flack's apartment**

**Somewhere in NYC**

First she boiled coffee like she had at home, but pronounced it much worse than she remembered. A percolator was just as bad. Then they had tried every combination that could come out of a drip pot, then just about everything short a red eye at the coffee place down the street. Nothing really fit her fantasy ideal of coffee she had held while she was captive.

Until Don picked up a French press pot on the way home one day; Hannah added what he called half and half, which was nothing more than cream thinned with milk and sugar to the cup and sipped. Oh yes, that was what she had wanted. She looked over and caught him smiling too.

**Tuesday**

**11:55 am**

**Office of Blythe Speech Associates**

**Manhattan, NYC**

Sheldon had done it again. He'd hooked him up with a speech therapist who was doing some kind of paper on adults learning to speak, and who was willing to work with Hannah for free so long as she could discuss the case of "Hannah F." in her paper. It was all good and above board, and he was thrilled.

He'd been in the waiting room, curled up with one of his philosophy books for the past ninety minutes. He didn't mind waiting in the slightest, he could read, drink decent coffee, and didn't have to wear a tie. But all good things must come to an end, and his did when a denim skirt stopped in front of him.

Hannah slipped a note into his open book. She couldn't wait until she could read enough English to start catching up with his clearly loved library. She always wanted to ask him to read to her. Sometimes she did. He always did.

Don picked up the note. _Do you still wish to marry?_, it read, in her clear, firm hand. He looked up and nodded, "Yeah, do you?" he asked as he went looking for a pen so she could write her reply.

She stayed his hand. Her voice was scratchy and rough, almost low enough to be a whisper, and would forever make him think of featherbeds in the fall, but it was clear. "Yes."

**Wednesday**

**2:18 pm**

**Abandoned Warehouse**

**Queens, NYC**

It is rarely still a good day when after running a very important errand on your lunch break, you and the team are called out to a dead body, only to have the inside stoop give way and dump you on your ass right in the decomp part of the crime scene. Given that decomp is slimy, and the floor had a slight incline, Don went sliding and managed to get goo up under his vest, and all over his jacket and shirt. This meant that he officially became crime scene himself, and now had to give up his clothing for the cause, which included stripping to his shorts and undershirt in front of someone who could take control of the evidence, namely one Stella Bonasera. Now he liked Stel, and wasn't shy about his body and wasn't going all the way down anyway, so it wouldn't have mattered except that he had to clean out his pockets, and she had eyes like a hawk. So when a small box of robin's egg blue appeared in the pile she waited until the evidence was bagged up, then stopped him from collecting it with the rest of his crap by the simple measure of holding it in place with a gloved finger.

He looked up to see the grin just lighting up Stella's face. "Come on, let's see it."

"See what?" Don knew there was no way he would play this off, but the game wanted playing anyway.

"Oh, come on Flack. Any woman who's lived in New York more than six months knows exactly what one of those boxes means. Give it up."

He gave her an exaggerated sigh. "Ya know, she likes simple, and she does so much with her hands…" He opened the box to reveal a slender, delicate band of deepest blue, framed in gold. "…and she says Amish girls get married in blue, so…"

Stella kept grinning as she admired the delicate sapphire eternity band, noting that he'd had the year and something in Irish engraved inside the band, before handing it back. "Oh, it's perfect. What does it say?"

"Mo Chroi," damn it, did Stella have to make him blush? "My heart."

**Wednesday**

**5:57 pm**

**Battery Park viewing platform**

**Manhattan, NYC**

"You know, I did not know where I was, until you brought me here." Hannah's voice was growing steadily stronger. Much of the scratch was gone now, but it would always be soft and low. She'd worn away the higher registers with silent screaming. What everyone else was finding remarkable was how quickly she was picking up English. No one seemed to understand that she'd been listening to it for a good three months now, and if she had any talent at all she was bound to pick it up. She turned to look at Don, who was standing on the viewing platform behind her, looking out at the lit up Statue of Liberty, his arms carefully wrapped around her waist. "Mamma told me of this big city, a place she wished to visit, but I never thought."

Don was thrilled at the sound of her voice. He couldn't tell if it was just still garbled, or if she did have some kind of inherent accent or what, but he loved hearing it anyway. I have given her her voice, he thought, if I do nothing else, I have done that. "I just hope you love it like I do." It was the third person in this relationship, this city. He felt like it was just waiting to truly welcome her as it had people from everywhere forever; liberty for her too.

"I do love it here. I want to stay now. Not just because of what they think, but because of this city." She turned in his arms to face him. "I want to go to school." She remembered her mother crying in the pantry after her father had announced his conviction to follow the more conservative Bishop Stolfus, which would mean their children would have to leave school, even before the eighth grade, as was more common among the Amish. Her mother had used her time of rumpspringa to go to the local high school, and had wanted her children to do the same. "Yes, we are called to be apart from the world." She told her that day, "But this world is an amazing place, full of wonderful people and ideas, and I did want you to learn as much of it as you could." Hannah knew her mother would never do other than submit to her father, it was not their way, but her heart had been broken that day. "My Mamma wanted that for me. I want it too."

"This is a good city for it. If you want it, we'll find a way." He nudged her around to look at Lady Liberty once again. "Maybe I'll go back too; finally get that degree I wanted." Hell, if she could stand up to her entire culture, surely he could finally stand up to his old man.

"Yes, we go together." She chuckled, a soft, breathy sound. He'd finished high school at least, surely. "At same time."

"There are other things we can do together. Like make a home in this city." He reached down, pulled the glove off her hand, swore he felt the city around him hold it's breath. "I want it to be your home."

"I want that too." She looked down as he slid the deep blue ring over her finger. He could feel the city exhaling around him as breath left his lungs. "So proud," she murmured.

"Yeah, well, I'm proud of you. I want this city to know that you're staying and going to be mine." He held her close, felt Lady Liberty welcome her in, and smiled.


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter Eighteen**

**Saturday**

**7:23 am**

**Don Flack's apartment**

**Somewhere in NYC**

"Ryan, this is Danny. Danny, Ryan. You brought food?" Don was introducing and inquiring while he was setting out paint supplies. If all went well and this paint really was quick dry as promised, by the time Hannah, Lindsey and Lucy got back the walls in the main room would be a buttery cream color. He had finally got her to tell him what she wanted, and then they'd worked out the compromise. The dark wood floor was staying, as was the TV and, for now, his old comfy couch. They were actually adding another set of bookshelves, replacing the dated glass coffee table for a rustic wood one, and the counter height kitchen table with the barstools for a standard height model, more comfortable for a petite frame. She wanted to make things for the walls, but agreed to keep the autographed Rangers poster. It would just be moved out here. Another chest of drawers would be added to the bedroom. And then a couple more pieces for a surprise.

"Nice to meet ya. Yeah, I got food. Do you really think we can get all this done in one day?" Danny put the bag of chips, noshes and beer on the counter. The quilting class had been a stroke of genius on Lindsey's part. She'd always want to go to one, she said, and Hannah was apparently familiar enough to be willing to help with Lucy along the way. Add in breakfast and they had a good eleven hours to get this thing done. But this thing was a lot of thing.

"Oh, I think we'll be fine," Ryan was taping window glass. He'd been there for a good while already, having come down right after morning mass. They had the furniture that was going to remain in the center of the room and covered already, and the super had helped them cart the unwanted stuff to the curb. From the looks of it, some of it had already found a new home.

After a few more minutes of work Don stood and took a long look around at his stylish dark walls. Yeah, but they make her so uncomfortable, he thought, they look too much like a dungeon. Oh well. "Let's do this."

**Sunday**

**11:18 am**

**Don Flack's apartment**

**Somewhere in NYC**

They were going to need a second coat of primer, no doubt about it. The color was showing through just enough to make that want to happen. Danny cursed the paint thoroughly and fluently before they got started again.

**Sunday**

**11:51 am**

**Don Flack's apartment**

**Somewhere in NYC**

"So, Ryan, I never caught what you do?" Danny had one of the rollers and was working on the ceiling while Ryan had one wall and Don was cutting in the edges.

"Actually, it's Father Ryan."

You shoulda asked before opening your mouth earlier Messer. "Great, now I'm going to hell."

Ryan laughed so hard he had to clean the paint off the floor.

**Sunday**

**6:32 pm**

**Don Flack's apartment**

**Somewhere in NYC**

Don had spotted the girls coming up the street and decided to meet them in the hallway. "Here. No peeking yet."

Hannah was tired, but ecstatic. She had such a story to tell him, and now there was some kind of surprise. But as soon as the cloth wound around her eyes she felt her self panic. "No!" She cried, frightening Lucy into tears. She ripped the blindfold off and just stood there, trying to figure out what had just come over her.

Don got it before she did. "Ohhh, hey, I'm sorry. I didn't think. That was my bad. You okay?" Dumb move there Flack, he thought, really dumb. He pulled her in and hugged her close until he got a reply.

Of course. They always covered your eyes before something new and particularly bad would happen. It made you more afraid, they liked you afraid. She rested her head against him a moment as her heart calmed back down to normal. "Yes, yes. I am fine. Just frightened. And we frighten Lucy." She reached out to the little girl, who was calming down now in her mother's arms, and stroked one chubby fist. "I will keep my eyes closed until you tell me." She covered her eyes with her own hands.

"Good enough." Don took her lightly by the shoulders and steered her into the apartment. He grinned as he heard Lindsey exclaiming behind him. "Apparently it gets the country girl stamp of approval already. Okay, just like this." He steered her around a bit, then turned her and gently pushed her down into a sitting position. "Okay, open them."

Hannah opened her eyes and gasped with astonishment. No longer was it dark as a tomb in here, it was light and soft on the eyes. The furniture had moved, some changed, which made it cozier, more like a real home and not just a place to sleep. And…oh! She jumped up and turned around. "A rocking chair!"

"Yeah, you said you missed your mom's." He wished he could have returned her family heirloom, but instead he'd bought her new, with the foot stool to go with it and some baskets to store her sewing stuff. He'd sorted the room so she could have the window, instead of sitting on the sill, watching for him to come home. "Go on, give it a test rock."

While she sat and admired the neat piece Danny came over from the table with something large in his hand. A circle of wood, with its own stand. "Looks like we have to make room for this too, they brought it back with them."

"Yeah, you're not the only one that full of surprises." Lindsey grinned and nodded at Hannah. "Gonna tell him or what?"

"Oh, this woman at the shop. She wants me to make a quilt for her." Hannah smiled and shook her head. "Is not nearly as much a surprise."

"Yeah, except the woman in question was an interior decorator from one of the places uptown." Lindsey just shook her head and grinned. "Apparently custom hand-made quilts are all the rage these days. When she found out there was a woman in New York who could do them as well as the Amish communities in Pennsylvania she jumped at the chance to lower her overhead. She offered Hannah five thousand to make one up for her."

The men turned to Hannah, stunned by this bit of news. She just shrugged at them. "It will take some months to finish. I must replace what was my wedding chest as well."

"You've got time. We haven't even set a date yet." He turned back to Lindsey. "This designer offer this in writing?"

"I've been in New York longer than a week, Flack." Lindsey shot back, passing him one of the women's business cards. "I said her fiancée the cop would be down to talk to her at the beginning of the week, to make sure it was a legit."

"Good. Thank you."

Danny turned to Hannah. "So, you got a job, a nice place to live, and a soon to be husband. You're a New York success story, you know that?"

Hannah just smiled back as she stepped into Don's arms. "I think the city loves me as I love the city."

**Sunday**

**10:57 pm**

**Don Flack's apartment**

**Somewhere in NYC**

So while the paint dried they'd gone down to the pub for dinner, which included the game, and in her case beer to celebrate the paint and the job. Eventually they lost Ryan, and then the parents who took Lucy home to bed. And now Don had to get a slightly tipsy Hannah into bed.

They made it as far as the kitchen before she stopped him. "There is something I wish to try."

"Try what?"

"Something I see tonight on the…ahhh." She pointed at the television

"Hockey? Ice skating? I'll take you to the rink in the park when it opens."

"No, no. Skating I know. I wish to try this." She stepped up to him and pressed a quick kiss to his lips.

That floored him, right there. One minute he was confused, a not unusual state around her, the next it was all honey whiskey hair and the taste of cinnamon on his lips. "Whoa. Just, whoa." He gently but firmly took her by the shoulders and took a step back.

"What? What I do wrong?"

"No. Not at all. It's just that I don't want you to get hurt again." I don't want to screw this up, he thought. "First off, why did you just do that? Honest answer."

She shrugged. "I wish to try. I not think you mind."

"No, I didn't. Have you ever done it before?"

"No."

"Not with the assh…the bad men?"

"No, not at all. Why?"

"Because that's usually the first step in…ahhh…baby-making." He held up his hand as her eyes went wide with the realization. "Which we are not going to do tonight. I said not until you're ready and I meant it."

Hannah shook her head and sat on the back of the couch. She hadn't realized what she was starting. Hadn't meant that, it just looked interesting was all. "That I am not ready for. That I am not strong for, not yet."

Don was pacing in a little circle by now, restless movements to work off energy that dearly wanted to build. "See, that's what I mean. There is no 'again' here, this is gonna be something entirely new, only you don't realize that yet." Part of that energy was anger, maybe he could go piss on one of their graves somewhere. "You remember when I asked you to talk to someone about what happened?"

"I remember. I do not want to think of it."

"I know, I know. How can I explain this?" He sat on the back of the couch next to her. "Look, did you ever get a really bad splinter? Like one that made your finger swell up and everything?"

"No This one time my brother. Our Mamma had to cut his finger to get out the poison."

"Yeah, see, that's exactly it. They put a splinter in your heart, see, and that splinter is making poison. It doesn't make you bad, but makes poison, understand?" She nodded. "That poison is the idea that what happens between two people like that is hurtful and bad. I know you don't believe me right now, but that's because of the poison. I've got to take you to someone who'll help you cut your own heart open and get the poison out. Then the nightmares will stop and you can learn what it's like when you're really loved."

"Know you love me. I love you. Why not we just try?"

I love you. His heart thrilled to hear her say that. "If we tried now, it would just push the splinter in deeper."

"Oh." She understood. Mostly understood. "My brother hurt when Mamma cut his finger, but it got better. Still, he has a scar."

"Yeah, but having the scar still didn't make him a bad person. And having this scar in your heart won't make you a bad one either. No matter what the Bishop thinks."

"I know." She wasn't looking forward to this draining of the poison he was talking about, but she could understand it, and see that it would have to be done.

"Good. Now you're sure they never kissed you?" He reached up and gently touched her lips with one finger.

"No, never. Why?"

"Because that means I won't drive the splinter in when I do this." He cupped the back of her neck and bent down and kissed her. A small taste first, then coaxing her lips apart so he could savor.

She had done it wrong, she realized. This was softer and warmer and he was right there so close. Then he was licking at her in a way that gave her the shivers, and then his tongue was inside in a way that made them worse. By the time he pulled away her lips felt swollen and she was warm and tingly everywhere. "Du liewer grund."

"What?" His voice was rough with the feelings that first kiss had brought to him.

It took her a moment to translate, her head was spinning. "My goodness."

"Yeah." That summed it up pretty well. "You oughta go to bed. I'm sleeping out here tonight."

"Why?"

Because there's not enough cold water in all of New York to keep my promise with you next to me in that thin cotton nightgown. Not after tonight. "It's better this way. Good night Honey."

"Good night, love."


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter nineteen**

**Monday**

**5:15 am**

**Don Flack's apartment**

**Somewhere in NYC**

There was no help for it, none whatsoever. It simply had to be done. It broke his heart to admit it but there it was. If he was going to be spending many more nights out here Don Flack had to get a new couch.

He lay there in the cold dawn light breaking over the city, listening to the sound of Hannah in the bathroom. He knew once she went in there in the morning he'd have a good twenty minutes to work with, which in his present state were odds on all he needed. As soon as the water started he reached down and coaxed the half hearted erection that had plagued him all night to fullness, and let the images that had kept him from anything resembling decent sleep fully fill his mind. He could picture her there, not the quiet country mouse but the wild fae creature, all curves and honey gold curls, healthy, strong and wanting her passion, riding him for all she was worth. He could picture how she would look in the moonlight…no, the sunlight, she was made for sun and bright and to never be ashamed of her fire. He could just picture the way she would grip his waist, throw back her head until her curls brushed his thighs, the creamy line of her throat, the gentle bounce and sway of her breasts. He could hear the little sounds she made, begging and pleading in two languages in that soft, rough featherbed voice. He could almost smell her, spice and apple pie and the unmistakable woman scent of passion rising. And if he really thought of it he could feel the damp heat of her as she settled him in deeper.

Just as he was about to ease his own needs and give himself the space to keep his promise his phone rang, with the ring tone he set aside for the main desk. Three minutes more, he thought, maybe less ya bastards. But they would just try again and then tell Mack and then it would all go to hell…with a growl of a groan he left off what he was doing and answered the God dammed thing. "What?"

"Sorry Detective, didn't mean to interrupt ya." The sergeant on duty had called too many cops at that hour not to recognize what being that awake and that pissed meant. He'd learned not to take it personal. "I got a note here says to call you if a Luke Yoder called. He said he's on his way to the station now."

"Great, thanks." Don shut the phone, and looked over to see if maybe Honey was still in the bathroom. No joy, she had stuck her head out the door, all damp curls and sleepy eyes. "You have to come to the station with me this morning. Luke Yoder is on his way into town. I don't know why." He sighed as she said ya, all right and shut the door again. Not only was he not gonna be able to finish, but now he had the picture of her in the shower in his head, maybe wrapped around his waist, legs draped over his….get a grip you dumb ass, he told himself. You're already in for a bad day.

**Monday**

**7:48 am**

**NYPD Crime Lab**

**Manhattan, NYC**

After a quick breakfast they came in the back door of the station. Don's current condition had not been helped by what Hannah chose to wear that day. Back in the shop in Brooklyn he would have sworn that the long denim dress would have fit her like a sack. But once on over a sea green shirt and clipped in the back somehow it fit her figure in a way that brought out the curves and made her look somehow womanly and right. He didn't know how she got her hair to stay back at the temples, but other than that bit of feminine magic she wore only her, dare he think of it that way, NYPD blue engagement ring. He couldn't explain it but somehow she managed to look like a doll he wanted to sweep in his arms and protect and a grown woman who could take her place at his side, all at the same time.

It wasn't hard to pick out Luke Yoder, that hat he wore stood out even in a New York Police station. He caught sight of them a moment after, and smiled as he babbled something in their language to Hannah. "Good morning to you as well Luke Yoder," she replied, bringing a delighted grin to his face. "But maybe it is better if we use English so Don can speak too."

"You're talking." Yoder was clearly delighted. "And your English is very good."

"No one speaks like at home here. You listen all the time, you pick up quick."

"Ya, you would." He took a deep breath and looked over at Don. "I wanted to tell you…well, both of you, that what I said last time is not how I feel about the matter. This kind of thing…it happened to a girl in my unit. I made sure they threw the book at the bastard who did it, and made it clear that it was not her fault. However some of the others feel, that is what I believe, and my wife and our Bishop as well. So if you want to come a-visiting, you come to us whenever you like. Like a cousin, ya?"

Hannah's expression changed during his little speech, from something serious and a little sad to the sweetest smile. "That is most kind of you, both you and your wife, and we may just sometime soon. But you did not come all the way out here in harvest season to tell me something you could have put in a letter."

"No. I came because I found Bishop Stolfus. He wanted to come to New York and my Bishop said I had to show him the way." Yoder sighed in a way that could only be apologetic.

On hearing this news Hannah groaned and buried her face in her hands. Don looked from her to the other man. "What? I thought this would be a good thing."

Yoder shook his head. "I didn't tell him what happened, so I don't know what he's thinking about why she's here, but he came to bring her home."

"But I do not want to go home." Hannah smiled and held up her hand. "Don asked me to be his wife."

Yoder managed to grin and wince at the same time. He offered Don his hand. "Congratulations to both of you, you're a lucky man. But Bishop Stolfus is not going to be happy to hear that."

Don shook the offered hand. "Thank you. I thought marriage was a good thing."

"Not outside the church. Many of our people believe, if you don't join the Ordnug you doom yourself to hell."

"Great." Don groaned. "What do you think?"

"I don't presume to say what God is thinking." Yoder chuckled. "When I got out my Ruth Anna had already joined the Ordnug. I still wanted to marry her so I had to as well. You're a lucky bastard to get an Amish wife and still live in the English world."

"I believe you. So when are you bringing this Bishop down?"

"He's out front, smoking his pipe. I'll go fetch him."

Hannah groaned harder and buried her face again. "I do not want to tell the Bishop what happened."

"So, don't tell him." Don pulled her into a hug. "All he needs to know is that you're staying here and thank you very much for your concern. That's all. Go ahead and use interrogation room six, it's free." I ought to tell Mack the bishop is here, he thought, but then he'd want to talk to him and then he would know and we can hang that Russian bastard without any more evidence so why hurt her more than I need to.

"Hannah Fisher!" They both turned to see Yoder standing next to a man dressed much the same. He was an older man with a long, untidy grey beard, slightly stooped over, with hands and face worn from weather and work and time. He had spoken and now he said something to Hannah, who cast one long look back at Don before opening the door to the interrogation room and leading the way in. Yoder and Don tried to follow, but the old Bishop glared at them and shut the door in their faces.

"Come on." Don said and took Yoder around to the viewing box where he flipped on the camera. Hannah had sat, but Bishop Stolfus was still standing. "What are they saying?"

Yoder started translating:

"_Thank you for coming, but I am not going home. There is no home for me there any longer."_

"_You must return to your home and to your people. You will remain under my protection, in my home."_

"_I thank you for your generous offer, but I am remaining here. I am going to be married here."_

"_You marry an English?"_ He looked shocked.

"_Yes."_

"_You live with him now?"_

"_Yes, but we do not…"_

The Bishop interrupted "_So now you play the…"_ Yoder winced. "He just called her a whore."

The stricken look in Hannah's eyes was clear. _"I am no such thing!"_

Even before the Bishop had his hand all the way back Don was moving, but he couldn't get into the room before the sound of skin hitting skin echoed throughout the hall. He grabbed the old man and pushed him away from Hannah, who had grabbed her cheek in shock. "Back off! I don't give a shit who you are, you don't get to hit."

The old man looked past him and yelled something at Hannah, who yelled back as loudly as she could. This exchange continued for a few passes, while Don stood in the middle to keep them apart and Yoder stood in the doorway, wincing at the language the Bishop was using. Don didn't need to know the language to recognize a knock-down, drag-out family battle, that sort of thing was universal. It was one of those things that had to happen; he just wanted to make sure no one got physically hurt.

After too dammed long the old man gave it up. He glared at Don, spat on the floor, and stalked toward the front door. Yoder gave them both one stricken look of apology. "I'm sorry." was really all he could say.

"Not your fault. 'S okay," was all Don could come up with. Now that the bishop was out of the room he could turn his attention fully on Hannah, and peel her hand away from her cheek to inspect the red mark there. Yoder looked like he was going to say more, but the bishop yelled and he hurried away. Hannah got up and went into the hallway to be sure they were gone. As soon as she saw that they were she burst into tears.

Don pulled her in close and held her while she soaked his shirt. One of the officers milling about not listening came over. "Everything all right Flack?"

"Yeah, yeah, near as I can figure her family thinks NYPD ain't good enough for her." Every officer within ear shot, and then those within grapevine range promptly closed ranks around the couple, and filled in the space where her family should have been.


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter twenty**

**Thursday**

**6:15 pm**

**Don Flack's apartment**

**Somewhere in NYC**

"Stop."

At the sound of his country mouse's calm request Don Flack obligingly stopped cutting cucumber for the dinner salad. He looked over at the small form standing at the stove, cooking the pork shops. "Aw, now you're just havin' fun with it, aren't you?"

"Ya." Hannah just smiled and nodded at him. She was just teasing, mostly. "You can start again."

Two months of therapy, Don thought, and she's finally having some fun with it. Let her take all the power and hold it for a while, the shrink had said, let her decide where you go with the physical. She already had the power, he'd retorted, he'd never push her to do anything she didn't want to do. Not being pushed isn't the same as being in control, the shrink had replied, let her tell you what to do. Actually, let her tell you when to stop. Let her learn in her bones that when she says stop with you, you always will; that her no will always mean no. Only then will she be comfortable saying start, saying yes.

It had become a sort of a game. Drinking beer, stop. Eating pizza, stop. Walking down the stairs, stop. Cutting up vegetables, stop. But he always stopped and so she was learning. It was working. Thank you Ryan, he thought, for finding her that shrink.

"Stop."

Obligingly he stopped again. "We're never gonna get dinner on the table." He groused, but with a big, clear smile.

"Ya, we will." She smiled, a little more shyly than usual. "Finish, then."

He went back to chopping, but kept looking over at that shy smile. "What are you thinking?"

"The meat is ready for table." She plated the chops and took them the few steps over.

"Uh-huh. What else?"

"You are slow with the salad."

------

After dinner they settled in to watch the game. Or rather, he settled on the new couch to watch the game, she settled in her rocking chair to sew and kinda sorta track the game, usually. This time, however, she came over and curled up on the couch beside him.

"What."

"I finish quilt today, for design woman. She wants to come by and pick up."

"Not when I'm not here. I don't want you opening the door when I'm not here unless it's Ryan or someone we know from the lab. Someone you know is safe." They wouldn't give in to a Russian gun to the head.

"Ya, I know. But once the money comes for the quilt I go by a dress and then we can be married."

"I'll buy you a dress, you know that. You already want the cheapest wedding in town."

She smiled, shook her head. "Not cheap. It cost so much to rent room, buy food, is too much."

Don laughed. "Only you would call a lunch catered by the cop's BBQ guys at the Sons of Italy hall expensive." He'd been utterly charmed when she told him that if they were having an Amish wedding her father would have planted enough extra to feed a small army, and the entire thing would have been home cooked and pot-lucked in her parent's living room. This was as close as they could get in New York to that kind of cozy, family setting. Cops never made much money, sometimes he worried about that. But when he brought it up she just reminded him that she was a farmer's daughter, she considered him a comfortably well-off man.

"I do not have dowry, I do not have chest, you do not need things for farm, at least I bring own dress." Perhaps she was a bit proud herself, but she was going to provide her own wedding dress, simple as that. She was going to sew her own, something pretty and practical she could wear for somewhat formal events in the future, as all her friends had, but Stella and Lindsey explained to her that English weddings did not work that way. You wore the dress once and that was that. She thought it was silly and wasteful and too proud until they explained that it had to be white, or else Don's friends, and worse, his father, might think her ashamed of what happened. So white it would be and worn once, but she would pay for it herself.

"I know. I know. But that doesn't explain why you're over here on the couch tonight."

"I am trying to think."

"You're talking. Usually that means you're thinking just fine." He had to tease just a bit.

"No. I mean I am trying to….decide."

"Okay, trying to decide between what and what?"

"I always hear, growing up, wait to be married, wait to be married."

"Wait to be married for?"

"You know." She blushed and looked at the tv instead of at him.

"It's okay to say sex, you know."

"Ya." She blushed furiously, but ignored him a few moments. At the next commercial, "Part of me want to wait, part of me want to try."

Thank god for throw pillows, they conceal a host of growing, er, problems. "Okay, so why do you want to wait?"

"Is right thing to do. Is a gift to give to a husband, ya?"

"Yeah, I can see that. So why try now, then?"

"Part because I wish to know. Everyone say is so good, I wish to know."

"And the other part?"

She peeled the label on her beer a bit. "I wish to say I give gift, they not take or make me give. I give with whole heart."

"You think they're coming back?" She shrugged and looked away again. "Even if they did, which they won't, that would still be your gift to give. It's not something someone can take away."

"You do not know that."

"I know you're stronger than they are." He smiled to himself as she snorted and looked away. "Here." He made the long arm behind him and pulled over the file with all the wedding plans. First page was a list of the dates still available for the wedding. "Pick a date already."

"Why?"

"If you really want to try, if that's what you're really thinking, then anticipation will make it all the better. If not, having to wait will just make it worse."

She thought about that from all angles. "Ya, this is true." She circled a date on the calendar about six weeks out. "There, then."

"All right," he put the file away and went back to the game. After a few moments he noticed that she hadn't moved, in a way that said that she was still thinking of something. "Now what?"

"I want to know I will not be afraid, when we do…" She blushed again.

"I don't think anyone can promise you that, honey. Scary memories are going to come with the package. But we'll get through 'em."

"Ya, but I want to start to stop being afraid."

"So what do you want to do?"

"This." She picked up his arm, snuggled right up against him, and pulled it around her shoulders. That done she leaned into him, with her head right over his heart.

"Oh. Well, this you can do anytime." He grinned leaned down to catch the scent of her hair, and kinda coaxed her into settling comfortably in his arms. He had a beer, a belly full of a home-cooked meal, the Rangers, and his country mouse almost in his lap. And she was getting better. As far as he was concerned, life was just about perfect.

------

**Monday**

**5:29 pm**

**NYPD Crime Lab**

**Manhattan, NYC**

"Hey, Mr. Flack." The last person he expected to be on the phone was the super of his building. "You know you left your door open this morning."

"No, I didn't." He always made dammed sure Hannah locked it behind him.

"Well, it's open. It was when I went up there to unclog Mrs. Kripsky's toilet."

He slowly sat up in his chair. "So, knock and tell Hannah. She'll lock it up."

"She ain't home."

"She's always home."

"Yeah, well, she ain't home now."

**Monday**

**5:38 pm**

**Don Flack's apartment**

**Somewhere in NYC**

"Hannah?" Don called as he nudged open the door, his hand automatically reaching for his gun, Danny and Mack right behind him. "Hannah?!"

There was no answer.

"Are you sure she wouldn't go out without you." Mack wanted to know.

"Mack, she's too scared to go to the market on the corner for milk without me." But still, he went to the window and called out to the street below. "Hannah?! Hannah!"


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter Twenty-One**

**Monday**

**5:45 pm**

**Don Flack's apartment**

**Somewhere in NYC**

"Oven's on low." Danny reported as he used a handkerchief to cover his hand to turn it off. This might be a crime scene, but it didn't need to burn down. "And look." He nodded to the table, which had a scattering of flour and a spreading pile of dough. "She was right in the middle of something."

"Making bread," Don confirmed, and checked the side of the fridge. "That's the first thing she does most days, so this happened in the morning and she's missing an apron."

Mack looked at the doorway. "This door hasn't been forced."

"She wouldn't open it if I wasn't home, unless it was for someone from the lab. And everyone was at work this morning." Don sagged against the wall in the hallway. No one could decide if he was the cop investigating a crime or the victim's family. Either way, his apartment was clearly a crime scene.

"Well, she clearly wasn't planning to go anywhere. But she also clearly opened this door." Mack shook his head. "Give me the list of who she'd let in again."

Don sighed. "You, Danny, Lindsey, Stel, Hawks, Ryan. That's it. She wouldn't even let my folks in."

"Well we know most of that list has an alibi, they were all at work. Call your friend Ryan."

"I did, he was saying mass." Don checked his watch. "He'll be calling me any minute."

Not two minutes later Don's phone rang. "Hey, Don. Why are you calling me?"

"Have you seen Hannah today?"

"No, I've been in meetings all the dammed day. Why, isn't she at home?"

"No, she's not." Don laid out the problem for his friend. "And everyone she would open the door for has an alibi for today except the Russians."

"She wouldn't have opened the door for them, you know that. But you haven't accounted for everyone."

"What do you mean?" Don waived Mack and Danny over. "I'm putting you on speakerphone."

A moment later everyone could hear what Ryan was thinking. "You keep saying she doesn't have a family because she doesn't have anyone in New York, and because her people rejected her. But they haven't dropped off the face of the earth. Would she have opened the door for someone from the Amish community?"

A look of hopeful anger settled over Don's face. "Shit. I never thought of that."

"I'll call Yoder." Danny stepped off to one side.

"I'll call the sheriff." Mack stepped to the other.

"I'll pray." Ryan hung up the phone. It might not do a lick of good, Don thought, but you never know.

**Monday**

**6:15 pm**

**Don Flack's apartment**

**Somewhere in NYC**

"No joy on Yoder, the phone's off. I had Adam check it." Danny reported back. "Maybe there's a Mrs. Yoder, he turned it off for some fun. Who knows?"

"There is." Don turned to Mack, "How about the sheriff?"

"He said he's not willing to, in his words 'Harass' the Bishop until she's been gone 48 hours." Mack shook his head. "The only person we know of who knows how to find Hannah's people is Yoder, but you'll never find his farm in the dark. Head out tonight, but plan to reach that area at first light. Then you two talk to this Bishop. Someone in that area was receiving those pictures, which means the Russians have some kind of connection there. Something tells me that's the missing piece in all this."

"First light," Don felt his heart sinking into his stomach. "Mack, you know that gives them a twenty hour head start."

"I know, Don. But this is uncharted territory. You're going to need all the help you can get, and that's all I can give you.

Don followed Danny out to the truck, to go back to the station and get it set up, give him a chance to at least catch a nap. Twenty hours. Hold on Honey. I'm coming. Just hold on.

**Tuesday**

**4:18 am**

**Yoder Farm**

**Rural upstate New York**

Is this what her home looked like, Don wondered as they pulled into the farmyard. Is this the kind of world she came from? No wonder the city still frightens her at times.

When Danny shut off the car the world went absolutely still. There was maybe the sound of some birds out there, a cow, and the wind in the trees. But other than that there was nothing, utterly nothing. It was completely quiet. And it smelled different here too; greener, no car exhaust or too many people. The air was clean here. I bet the water is too, he thought, fresh from the ground, and they grow their own food and rise and sleep with the sun. "She lost all of this." He muttered to Danny. "How can I ever make that up to her?"

"Gotta find her first," Danny shot back as he swung out of the SUV.

Don went to follow, only to see the door open and Yoder come out, hatless and with his suspenders dangling, followed by his wife. His wife, Don realized. He never thought he'd see another country mouse but there she was. This one didn't have the fae in her, he realized, but she made him understand that his was missing, how dammed frightened he was, all over again.

By the time he scraped his mud back into a ball Danny had explained the situation to Yoder and Yoder had gone back inside. A moment later he came out with his coat and hat in place. "The battery on the misbegotten phone died. I'm in; I'll show you how to get there."

**Tuesday**

**5:23 am**

**Stolfus Farm**

**Rural upstate New York**

"Okay, how the hell did he know?" Don wanted to know, as they pulled up to the farm and parked. To his cop eye this one had a problem around it. Yoder's was perfectly neat, utterly tidy. There hadn't even been any mud splattered on his white walls, this place, not so much. And even more annoying was the corn fed country Sheriff standing on the porch next to the Bishop.

"Y'all can just go back to the city. Yer girl ain't here." The Sheriff called out to them as they came up the walk.

"Yeah, well, I'd like to have a look around, see that for myself." Don shot back.

"You got a warrant?"

"Do I need one? She's the witness to a capitol crime, how 'bout a little cooperation here?"

"How 'bout you city cops don't come out here and tell me how to do my job."

An argument ensued, pretty much putting the situation into deadlock. In the meantime Yoder and the Bishop were having their own argument in Pennsylvania Dutch. This went on for a good three, four minutes there in the front yard of the house until a whistle that could have been heard across a crowded Yankee Stadium bit through the early morning air.

Everyone stopped and turned to look at Danny, who had wandered over to look at something on the ground between the house and the barn. He stood there holding it in the glove he'd pulled from his pocket. "You Amish like to shop at Tiffany's a lot?" He asked, holding up a blue sapphire band.

Just then the relative calm of the morning was shattered by a chair being thrown through a farmhouse window. Don shoved his way into the house, stormed up the stairs, found the first locked door on that side, and kicked it open. There was Hannah, his country mouse. Her dress was wrong, her hair was a mess, but she was alive. Alive.

He swept her up into his arms, holding her tight even as she cried and…tried to push away? "Honey, what is it? What's wrong?"

"It hurts!" She pushed until he let her go, but she didn't step away. "He is coming, the Russian Porchenko. He is on his way here!"

Just then a gun was fired downstairs.


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter twenty-two**

**Tuesday**

**5:24 am**

**Stolfus Farm**

**Rural upstate New York**

"Where's the bride?!" A harsh voice with a clear Russian accent echoed up the stairs as the sound of the gunshot faded. "Where is she, hah?!" Don grabbed Hannah and pushed her against the wall, putting himself between her and the door. He held his gun up, and ready as he crept toward the hall, trying to figure out what the hell was going on downstairs. "I have your fiancée here, pretty, come out, come out!"

"Naw, stay up there." Danny's voice came up clearly, followed by the grunting sound of fist meeting body.

"Be quiet! NYPD, hah." Don heard the distinct sound of a spit. "She should have listened to her Bishop, come home when told. Now we have to show you what we do. Then you go back, keep the NYPD off my ass, or else I kill her slow."

"Fuck you, you cock suc…." Danny's solid string of cursing was broken by the sound of another blow.

"No, we fuck her. Now you better come down pretty! Or else I kill your boy here!"

Don felt rather than saw Hannah moving past him. He pushed her back against the wall. "No." He muttered. He was not letting those bastards get their hands on her again.

"And what of Lindsey? And what of Lucy?" She whispered. Again she moved to move past him. "You find me once, you find me again. This I know." Her smile was soft and sad, the smile of a fae flying into the sun. "I will not give up. I love you."

"No!" But it was too late; she was already stepping out into the hallway where they could see. As timid and delicate as a fawn he watched her slowly descend the stairs until a leather covered arm reached out and fisted in her hair, dragging her down the rest of the way, and he heard their harsh laughter.

"There now! Bishop, we use your barn! Then you see what we do to your other girls if you talk, huh!" The barn. Don heard them moving out the door, went to the window and stood to the side and watched the procession. Three goons, one had a gun on Danny, one hauling the Sheriff who was bleeding from his arm and one all but dragging Hannah by the hair. Porchenko, easy to spot because of his near-white hair, was either holding down the Bishop, or walking with him, which made no sense at all.

The barn, Don thought, they don't know I'm coming. I have the advantage. Just hold on a little bit Honey, he thought, just a little bit more.

------

Well, this just sucks, Danny thought as the barrel of the rifle jabbed him between the shoulder blades for the umpteenth time. He'd been hiding behind the bumper of the Sheriff's SUV when goon #3 got the jump on him from behind. I shoulda been paying better attention, he thought. At least they don't know that Flack has my back.

The barn wasn't just one big building, like back in Montana. It was more of a complex, a multi-layered thing with horses here and cows there, workshops and storage and silos, clearly added to over years and generations. They were shoved down one twisting way and then another until they came to a large space with few animals and ample hay that seemed to make Porchenko happy. "Here. This is good. Make sure our guests stay to watch the show."

Danny felt himself being shoved to his knees in the straw. A moment later his own dammed cuffs were locked around one wrist, then to some kind of fence thing, where a goat looked it over with interest. "If you touch her I will kill you." It seemed like the right thing to say, to keep Porchenko distracted as long as he could.

Sadly, it only made him laugh. "Now watch very carefully. This is what we do to naughty little whores who break rules." There was no way in hell Danny was going to watch his friend's girl being hurt, so he pointed his eyes above her head as Porchenko pulled out a knife and the sound of cutting and ripping clothing was heard. He could tell from the squealing that Hannah was fighting it, but it didn't seem to be doing all that much good. Danny still wasn't looking, he had a confused impression of skin and a white skirt as they tossed a rope over the rafters and tied up her wrists but he wasn't going to really look. Not until he heard Porchenko start laughing again. "So who started in on the lesson, huh? Was it you, Bishop? Was it you?" Danny finally looked to see what the hell Porchenko was talking about. Hannah was facing him, was all but hanging by her wrists, standing on the toes of her boots, a white skirt hanging low on her hips, naked now from there up. Her skin was already streaked with cuts seeping blood, and several hour old bruises blossomed under her skin. The last piece fell into place as Danny felt the anger rise under his skin.

"Leave her alone you bastards!"

"No! Now we make sure she knows her lessons." Porchenko took a buggy whip off the wall, and let fly.

------

Yoder. He hadn't seen Yoder leaving. When Don got downstairs he found the younger man rooting around in the back of the Sheriff's SUV. "Where the hell were you?" He hissed.

"Under the car." Yoder replied. He crawled out with a rifle and a shotgun, offered the latter to Don. "I was a sharpshooter in the Air Force. Come on, they go to the barn."

"I thought you Amish were non-violent." Don said as he spotted the box of shells and filled his pockets.

"Ecclesiastes 3:1. To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heavens. Including a time to make war and a time to harm." Yoder checked out the rifle and filled his pockets as well. "I will not shoot first, but I will shoot back."

"Good enough." They went running for the barn, hoping like hell there weren't any look-outs. They just ducked through the door when the sound of leather and cord against flesh began to fill the spaces around them.

-----

Pain. Once again the world was reduced to pain. Last night had been bad enough; the names the Bishop had called her, the embarrassment of him tearing at her clothing. And then she realized he was enjoying, he enjoyed…the realization of that had been a gulf opening up under her, nothing was right any more. And then the Bishop went for the whip. She had been in such agony when he was done that she had been unable to eat or sleep. She'd cleaned herself up as best she could, put on one of his wife's old dresses, and waited for Don to come. Because he would come, she knew he would come, he would always come. Just like now, he would come. She only needed endure. But she had forgotten the pain, how it could layer over layer, building up until there was nothing else in the world.

Again the whip cracked through the air, lashed at her numb back, and then twisted around to lay a band of fire against her tenderer front. Hurry love, she thought, please make it stop again, just once more. Oh please, love, oh please.

"Freeze! NYPD!"

Before there was even time to register the voice there was the sound of guns all around her. She tried to scream, was screaming, even as it came out a harsh whisper. Then she was falling….

-----

Well, Don thought, they shot first.

Within moments it was all over. Porchenko was down, his goons were down; the floor of the barn was covered in blood. He had no idea how many were his, how many were Yoder's. It didn't matter. Not at all. He ran to Hannah, who had fainted, was dangling by her wrists from a rope over the rafters. Even as he ran he saw the blood all over her, was pulling off his jacket, wrapping her in the warmth it still held from him. He picked up the fallen knife and cut her down and got her in his lap and held her.

"The Bishop!" Danny was yelling at Yoder as he fished for his handcuff keys. "Get the Bishop, he was in on it!"

Don wasn't paying any attention; he was busy muttering to Hannah, his country mouse. "Come on Honey, wake up. Please wake up." A moment later those grey-green eyes fluttered open. "Knew you would come." She murmured as she slowly smiled. Suddenly the room filled with the light of dawn as a crowd of Amish, drawn by the sound of gunfire over the quiet fields opened the barn door, and it was all over.


End file.
